
G!ass_ 1 

Book ; 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



CONVENTION 



National Democratic 

'Party, 



HELD AT 



INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, 



SEPTEMBER 2 and 3, 



f\ 



1896. 




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1 



PROCEEDINGS 




OF THE 



CONVENTION 



OF THE 



National Democratic 

Party, 



Indianapolis, Indiana, 



SEPTEMBER 2 AND 3, 



1896. 



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■SBJb- 



PRESS OF 

SENTINEL PRINTING COMPANY, 

INDIANAPOLIS. 



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Proceedings. 



FIRST DAY.— First Session. 



Tomlinson Hall, 
Wednesday, September 2, 1896. 

11:30 O'CLOCK A. M. 

The Convention met pursuant to call. 

Hon. John M. Palmer (Chairman of the National Com- 
mittee) : The Convention will be in order. 

Gentlemen — I have the honor for a moment to preside over the first 
National Democratic Convention held in the year 1896. [Great cheer- 
ing.] The gavel will be in my hand but a moment. We are assembled 
here for lofty, noble, patriotic purposes. [Great applause.] Our earn- 
est desire is to serve our country [applause], and in the sincerity of that 
earnest purpose we may appeal to the Judge of all hearts. I tell you 
now we may appeal to the Great Master, to the Great Governor, and I 
beg of you now to listen to an invocation from Bishop White, of the 
diocese of Indiana. 

Bishop White invoked the Divine blessing in the follow- 
ing words : 

O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the 
Prince of Peace, give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers 
the nation is in by our unhappy division. Take away all hatred and 
prejudice and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union and con- 
cord; that so we may be all of one heart and one soul, united in one 
holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one 
mind and one mouth labor for the prosperity and welfare of this great 
people. 

O God of all power and might, of whose only providence Thy people 
do unto Thee true and laudable service, without whom nothing is strong, 



nothing is holy, who hath committed unto the nations the administra- 
tion of government and made peace and prosperity to depend upon the 
reign of law and order, vouchsafe, we beseech Thee, to the people of this 
land Thy favor and merciful guidance and protection. As at all times, 
so especially in the determination of the great questions with which 
we are now confronted, endow us with wisdom by Thy holy spirit to 
discern clearly between truth and falsehood, honor and dishonor, justice 
and injustice, harmony and discord; make us as a people to love that 
which is good, to shun that which is evil. 

To all who are in authority over us give Thy especial grace, that 
they mzy perceive and know what things they ought to do, and may 
have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same. To those who are 
here assembled as representatives of this great people to deliberate con- 
cerning the common welfare, grant Thy grace and guidance. Let noth- 
ing be done of strife and vainglory, ' of passion or prejudice. Let all 
ignorance, selfishness and self-will be put away, and be pleased, O Lord, 
to direct and prosper all their consultations to the advancement of Thy 
glory, the good of Thy church, the safety, honor and welfare of Thy 
people, that all things may be so ordered and settled by their endeavors 
upon the best and surest foundations; that peace and happiness, truth 
and justice, religion and piety may be established among us for all 
generations. 

These and all other necessaries for them, for us and for all man- 
kind, we humbly beg, in the name and mediation of Jesus Christ, our 
most blessed Lord and Savior. 

The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the 
fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all and evermore. Amen. 



THE CALL FOR THE CONVENTION. 

The Presiding Officer (Senator Palmer) : The Secretary 
of the Committee will now read the call under which this 
Convention was assembled. We will have the attention of 
the Convention to the reading of the call. 

By the request of the Secretary, Hon. Joseph H. Outh- 
waite, of Ohio, read the call, as follows: 

CALL FOR A NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. 



Indianapolis, August 7, 1896. 

At a meeting of the National Democratic Committee, held at In- 
dianapolis, Ind., on the 7th day of August, 1896, the following call was 
made for a National Convention of the National Democratic Party 
{applause], to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President: 



To the Democrats of the United States: [Great cheering.] 

"A political party has always been defined to be an association of 
voters to promote the success of political principles held in common. 
The Democratic party, during its whole history, has been pledged to 
promote the liberty of the individual, the security of private rights and 
property and the supremacy of the law. [Great cheering.] It has al- 
ways insisted upon a safe and stable money for the people's use. 
[Cheers.] It has insisted upon the maintenance of the financial honor 
of the nation, as well as upon the preservation inviolate of the institu- 
tions established by the Constitution. [Cheers.] These, its principles,, 
were abandoned by the supposed representatives of the party at a. 
national convention recently assembled at Chicago. [Applause.] 

"The Democratic party will, therefore, cease to exist unless it be 
preserved by the voluntary action of such of its members as still adhere 
to its fundamental principles. [Cheers.] No majority of the members 
of that convention, however large, had any right or power to surrender 
those principles. [Cheers.] When they undertook to do so, that as- 
semblage ceased to be a Democratic convention. [Cheers.] The action 
taken, the irregular proceedings and the platform enunciated by that 
body were, and are, so utterly and indefensibly revolutionary, and con- 
stitute such radical departures from the principles of true Democracy, 
which should characterize a sound and patriotic administration of our 
country's affairs, that its results are not entitled to the confidence or 
support of true Democrats. [Applause.] 

"For the first time since national parties were formed there is not 
before the American people a platform declaring the principles of the 
Democratic party as recognized and most courageously and consistently 
administered by Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland. [Great applause, 
continuing one minute.] Nor are there nominees for the offices of 
President and Vice-President of the United States pledged to carry 
those principles into practical effect. The faithful and true Democrats 
of the United States are determined that their principles shall not be 
ruthlessly surrendered [applause], nor the people be deprived of an 
opportunity to vote for candidates in accord therewith. [Applause.] 
Therefore, the National Democratic Party of the United States, through 
its regularly constituted committee, hereby calls a national convention 
of that party for the announcement of its platform and the nomination 
of candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President of the 
United States, and the transaction of such other business as is incidental 
thereto, to be held at Indianapolis on Wednesday, the 2d day of Septem- 
ber, 1896, at 12 o'clock noon, and hereby requests that the members of 
the party in the several States who believe in sound money [applause] 
and the preservation of lav/ and order [applause], and who are un- 
alterably opposed to the platform adopted and the candidates nom- 
inated at Chicago, will select, in such manner as to them shall seem 
best, a number of delegates to the same equal to twice the number of 
electoral votes to which such States are respectively entitled; such dele- 
gates shall be duly accredited according to the usages of the Democratic 



6 



party. Their credentials shall be forwarded or delivered to the secre- 
tary of this committee with all convenient speed, and this committee 
will make up and announce a roll of the delegates entitled to participate 
in the preliminary organization of the convention." 

[Signed] JOHN M. PALMER, Illinois, Chairman. 

JOHN R. WILSON, Indiana, Secretary. 

J. M. PALKNER, of Alabama. 

JOEL A. SPERRY, of Connecticut. 

T. B. NEAL, of Georgia. 

EUGENE HAGAN, of Kansas. 

D. CAPFERY, of Louisiana. 
C. VEY HOLMAN, of Maine. 

NATHAN MATTHEWS, JR., of Massachusetts. 

CHARLES A. CONRAD, of Montana. 

F. W. M. CUTCHEON, of Minnesota. 

GORDON WOODBURY, of New Hampshire. 

CHARLES TRACEY, of New York. 

C. E. S. WOOD, of Oregon. 

CHARLES C. MUMFORD, of Rhode Island. 

JOHN D. HANTEN, of South Dakota. 

M. L. CRAWFORD, of Texas. 

JOSEPH BRYAN, of Virginia. 

H. C. SIMS, of West Virginia. 

E. B. POND, of California. 
J. L. GASKINS, of Florida. 
L. M. MARTIN, of Iowa. 
R. T. TYLER, of Kentucky. 
JOHN E. SEMMES, of Maryland. 
THOMAS A. WILSON, of Michigan. 
L. C. KRAUTHOFF, of Missouri. 
EUCLID MARTIN, of Nebraska. 
WILLIAM J. CURTIS, of New Jersey. 
J. H. OUTHWAITE, of Ohio. 

J. C. BULLITT, of Pennsylvania. 
T. F. HOLLY, of South Carolina. 
J. C. McREYNOLDS, of Tennessee. 
W. H. CREAMER, of Vermont. 
THOMAS BURKE, of Washington. 
E. B. USHER, of Wisconsin. 

THE CALL OF THE ROLL. 

The Presiding Officer: Gentlemen of the Convention, 
the next business in order will be a call of the States in 
order to ascertain who are present. 

The Secretary: Chairmen of the State delegations will 
please answer "Here," when present, when the name of their 
State is called. 



The responses were as follows: 

Alabama — "Present, with a full delegation." 

Arkansas — "Present, with a full delegation." 

California — "Present." 

Colorado — "Present, with a solid delegation of one." 

Connecticut — "Present, with a solid delegation." 

Delaware — ' ' Present. ' ' 

Florida — "Present, with a full delegation; overflowing." 

Georgia — "Present, with twenty-four delegates." 

Idaho — No response. 

Illinois — "Present, with a full delegation and some to spare." 

Indiana — "Present, with a full delegation." 

Iowa — "All present." 

Kansas — "A full delegation here." 

Kentucky — "A full delegation and alternates beside." 

Louisiana — "Present, with a full delegation." 

Maine — "Present, with a full delegation." 

Maryland — "All here, heart and soul." 

Massachusetts — "The commonwealth of Massachusetts has a full 
delegation of thirty members and various alternates." 

Michigan — "A full delegation." 

Minnesota — "Minnesota has a delegation of eighteen delegates and 
nineteen alternates." [Laughter.] 

Mississippi — "Present, with a solid, harmonious delegation." 

Missouri — "A whole force of delegates and alternates." 

Montana — "A unanimous delegation." 

Nebraska — "Nebraska is here with a full delegation, and some more 
back of 'em." 

Nevada — No response. 

New Hampshire — "Present, with a full delegation." 

New Jersey — "Present, with a solid delegation." 

New York — The New York delegation, seventy-two in number, arose 
in a body. 

North Carolina — "Here, with a delegation of twelve." 

North Dakota — "Present, with a full delegation." 

Ohio — "Ohio is here with a full delegation to vote for sound money." 

Oregon — "Oregon has a full delegation in favor of honest money, 
honest men and honest government." 

Pennsylvania — "Pennsylvania has a full delegation of sixty-four 
delegates and many hundred more who would liked to have come." 

Rhode Island — "Present, with twenty-seven." 

South Carolina — "Present, with a full delegation." 

South Dakota — "Five delegates." 

Tennessee — [Applause, members rising.] "Tennessee has a full del- 
egation of twenty-four delegates and twenty-four alternates, and more 
to spare." 

Texas — "A full delegation of thirty men." 

Vermont — "The eight delegates of Vermont are here." 



Virginia — "Virginia has a full delegation." 
Washington — "Washington has a full delegation." 
West Virginia — "West Virginia is fully represented." 
Wisconsin— "Wisconsin is present with twenty-four delegates, and 
they are all Democrats." 

Secretary Wilson: That completes the call of the 
States — 41. [Voices: " Call the Territories."] 

The Chairman: Forty-one States have answered by- 
delegation. [Voices: " Call the Territories."] 

The Chairman: I think it will be exceedingly proper 
to call the Territories. The Secretary will call them. 

Alaska — [Laughter.] "Alaska is here." 
Arizona — "I am here." [Laughter.] 

New Mexico — "New Mexico occupies every seat that she is en- 
titled to." 

Oklahoma — No response. 
Indian Territory — No response. 

The Chairman: The next business in order, as appears 
from the printed list I have before me, is remarks by me. 
[Applause.] The word is silver. Silence is golden. I make 
no remarks, but I call for a report from the National 
Committee. 

NATIONAL COMMITTEE'S REPORT. 

By the request of the Secretary, Hon. John Brennan, of 
Wisconsin, read the report of the National Committee as 
follows: 

To the National Convention of the National Democratic Party: 

Your National Committee begs to submit the following report: 
Pursuant to the call for this Convention, the delegates elected 
thereto have been reported to the Secretary of the National Committee. 
From this report it appears that delegates have been selected and are 
present from forty-one States. Those in which no delegates have been 
selected are Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Nevada. In justice to the true 
Democracy of these States, it should be stated that they are so far dis- 
tant from the headquarters of the Executive Committee that the time 
available for correspondence and organization has been relatively so 
short and the population of said States so widely scattered that it has 
been impossible to take the necessary steps to form local organizations 



9 



and to secure the election of delegates to this Convention. Democrats 
of the true faith in those States doubtless regret the absence of repre- 
sentation from this Convention as deeply as can the Convention itself. 

Although Territories are not mentioned in the call for this Conven- 
tion, the Democracy cf the Territories of Arizona, Alaska and New 
Mexico have gallantly sent delegations to this Convention. [Applause.] 

We recommend that the delegates reported to the Secretary, a list of 
whom accompanies this report, shall be entitled to participate in the 
preliminary organization cf this Convention, and that those who are 
present and the alternates for those who are absent, if any* be entitled 
to cast the full number of votes to which their respective States are en- 
titled under the call for this Convention. 

We recommend that until otherwise ordered the rules of the last 
Democratic National Convention, which was held in 1892 [great ap- 
plause], shall govern the deliberations of this Convention. [Great ap- 
plause.] 

We recommend that all resolutions affecting the order of business 
or rules of this Convention or relating to the platform to be enunciated 
by it be referred to the appropriate committee without being read. 

We recommend that after the temporary organization shall have 
been perfected the roll of the States represented in this Convention be 
called, first, for the announcement of one member of a Committee on 
Credentials for each State. 

Second, a like member of the Committee on Permanent Organiza- 
tion, Order of Business and Rules. 

Third, a like member of the Committee on Resolutions. 

Fourth, a Vice-President. 

We recommend that the Temporary Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms 
be empowered to appoint such assistants as they may deem proper. 

We recommend the following temporary officers of this Convention: 
Temporary Chairman, ex-Governor Roswell P. Flower, of Watertown, 
N. Y.; Temporary Secretary, John R. Wilson, of the city of Indianap- 
olis; Sergeant-at-Arms, Walter Kessler, of the city of Indianapolis. 

All of which is respectfully submitted. 

The Presiding Officer: Gentlemen of the Convention, 
the question is upon the adoption of the report of the com- 
mittee. Those in favor of the adoption of the report, say 
aye. The contrary no. The ayes have it. The report of 
the committee is adopted. 

It is now the duty of the Chair to name the gentlemen 
who will conduct your Temporary President to the chair, 
Governor Jones, of Alabama, and Mr. George F. Peabody, 
of New York, will have the kindness to conduct Governor 
Flower to his place as Temporary Chairman of this Con- 
vention. 



10 



Governor Flower was conducted to the platform by the 
gentlemen designated. 

The Presiding Officer: Gentlemen of the Convention, 
I have the honor of transferring this gavel to Hon. Roswell 
P. Flower, of New York, your Temporary Chairman. 
[Cheers.] 

CHAIRMAN FLOWER'S SPEECH. 



Upon taking the chair, Mr. Flower said 



Fellow-Democrats of the National Convention, I thank you for this 
distinguished honor. This gathering is notice to the world that the 
Democratic Partj^ has not yet surrendered to Populism and anarchy. 
The true principles of Democracy, expounded by Jefferson and exempli- 
fied through a century of national history, are not dead because those 
principles have been repudiated by a convention calling itself Demo- 
cratic, but controlled by un-Democratic influences. Those are true 
Democrats who remain true to the principles of their party and who 
refuse to be bound by party declarations which betray party faiths and 
threaten both party and country with disaster. 

By our presence here to-day we emphasize the genuine character 
of our Democracy and demonstrate the patriotic nature of our partisan- 
ship. There have been numerous instances in political history where 
In the name of party loyalty men have justified their non-support of 
party platforms or candidates, and in too many of such cases has the 
movement failed because, when analyzed, its inspiring influence was 
found to be nothing higher than a desire to avenge disappointed ambi- 
tions or to overthrow a political organization. No such sordid motive 
can be charged against this gathering. 

No Democrat here sought honors from those who framed the Chi- 
cago platform. Every Democrat here has only political humiliation to 
expect in the event of the success of the Chicago ticket. No Democrat 
honored here by being made the candidate of this Convention can look 
forward with any reasonable hope to an election. None of us who 
nelp to nominate him can expect to be participants in any distribution 
of political favors. We are here because we love the Democratic Party 
[applause], and because we love our country. [Applause.] That is the 
inspiration which has drawn us together and encourages our action. 
That is the fact which evidences our sincerity and makes our cause 
strong with the people. 

STANDS BY PRINCIPLE. 

For myself, I can say that for over a half century I have been un- 
flinching in my support of Democratic principles, and I do not propose 
to give them up now, even if I have to bolt my party platform and 
ticket in order to maintain those principles. I have lived and worked 



11 



for my party in a town and county where Democrats were so few that 
it was only by accident that we could elect even a constable once or 
twice in a decade. 

The chief complaints which my political critics have made against 
my acts in public life have been that I have been too much of a Demo- 
cratic partisan — too devoted to the interests of my party. But in no 
test of partisanship have I been a better friend of the Democratic Party 
than I feel I am to-day [applause] in joining with those who would 
save the party from the abyss toward which it has thrown itself. 

Dear to me is this Democracy upon whose principles I was reared 
and for whose success I have labored in season and out. Dear to me 
are the teachings of those great Democrats, Jefferson, Jackson and 
Tilden, who, if alive to-day, would stand with us for party and public 
honor. And because I love my party and my country, I am here to do 
what I can to shield them from dangerous attack. 

The Populistic convention at Chicago did not realize that the asper- 
sions passed by them would in the future add luster to the object of the 
opprobrium. Long after the festering sore shall have healed, and shall 
have passed into history as an incident as grotesque as Coxey's march 
to Washington, there will stand out with the other foremost leaders 
of Democracy the name of the man they now villify, Grover Cleveland. 
[Immense applause.] 

A voice: "What's the matter with Cleveland?" 

Delegate: "He's all right." [Applause.] 

The danger of the Chicago platform lies not alone nor chiefly in its 
declaration for a financial policy which would be ruinous. The danger 
lies in the revolutionary influences which controlled the convention 
and animated its platform. 

Men may justly differ as to the best scheme of national finance, and 
may debate their differences without recrimination or without ques- 
tioning the honesty of motives. But when men, led on by ambitious 
politicians, their minds fired not by the example of American patriots, 
but by that of the radicals of the French revolution, overturn party 
precedents and pack a convention to secure an effective majority, then 
by aid of that majority raise aloft the incendiary banner of the poor 
against the rich, attack the integrity of the Supreme Court, threaten 
the subversion of national institutions and the indirect perversion of 
constitutional guarantees, incite disrespect to law and authority, sug- 
gest and in substance recommend the repudiation of national and pri- 
vate debts, and reject by intended implication the fundamental prin- 
ciple of Democracy that that government governs best which governs 
least — then it is time not only for Democrats to forsake that motley 
and un-American gathering, to reject that un-Democratic and un-Amer- 
ican enunciation of doctrines, and to join, in such manner as may seem 
best, with all patriots who cherish their country's honor and wish to 
protect the welfare of its people. [Applause.] 



12 



POPULISTS AT CHICAGO. 

I mistake the moral sense of the American people if the action of 
the Populists at Chicago, reinforced and emphasized by the action of the 
Populists at St. Louis, has not rekindled the spirit of American parti- 
otism and awakened the American conscience to the national dangers 
which lurk in the forces and influences behind Bryan and Sewall or 
Bryan and Watson. 

The real issue in this campaign is an issue of patriotism. In many 
a presidential election has the fight waged fiercely between the advo- 
cates of different political doctrines, and the ruin of the country has 
been freely predicted if either set of doctrines were established as the 
policy of the government — such predictions being merely the extreme 
expression of party politics; but in this election the issues around which 
the battle is waging involve the integrity of our institutions and the 
sacredness of our national honor, and when men have stirred that deep 
well of sentiment, ordinary party differences disappear, the moral issue- 
predominates, and all good citizens stand shoulder to shoulder against 
those who would defile the American name and undermine the walls of 
her political structure. [Applause.] 

Mr. Bn^an takes pains to reiterate, in about every second speech, 
that he stands squarely on the Chicago platform and supports every one 
of its planks. Pie has not yet announced his acceptance of all the 
planks of the Populist platform, but inasmuch as these are only differ- 
ent in degree, and he has been identified with Populism quite as much 
as with Democracy, it is but fair to assume that he stands on both 
platforms. 

Not quite so radical in his views, perhaps, as Altgeld or Tillman; 
not quite so frank as Tom Watson, he is nevertheless a fit representa- 
tive of the revolutionary forces behind him — ambitious, unsteady and 
unsafe. [Applause.] There is nothing in his career or in his present 
utterances to encourage the hope that if elected he would rise above 
his surroundings or stay the hand which threatens to destroy and per- 
vert. [Applause.] An untried man, a demagogue, a word- juggler, he 
perhaps will represent the restless mob from which he rose, and with 
characteristic recklessness does not hesitate to appeal to base human 
passions in order to attract votes. That in this incendiary's role, stand- 
ing, as he professes to stand, on principles as un-Democratic as those of 
Herr Most, he should deserve, by any conception of party regular- ty, the 
support of true Democrats is past comprehension and explainable only 
by ignorance of the man and his platform or disloyalty to genuine party 
faith. No sound conception of party regularity can justify encourage- 
ment to social disorder. Not even the honest believer in a silver stand- 
ard or the most enthusiastic bimetallist can, if he be a patriotic citizen,, 
conscientiously support the forces of political anarchy. 

REVOLUTIONARY CLOAK. 

Even the advocacy of free silver coinage by Bryan and many of his 
associates is only a cloak for the spirit of revolution behind it. [Ap- 
plause.] Every true bimetallist must blush to have his cause dependent 



13 



tor success upon those who would reorganize the Supreme Court when 
its decisions do not please a party convention, who would repudiate the 
national debt if free silver coinage did not accomplish bimetallism, 
who would attempt to destroy the sanctity of private contracts, who 
would have the government take and operate the country's railroads 
and telegraphs, who would restrain the strong arm of the law from the 
suppression of disorder. [Applause.] Even if I believed that free coin- 
age of silver by the United States independently and alone would, un- 
der proper conditions, restore bimetallism, I could not bring myself to 
intrust so delicate and important an undertaking to men of Bryan's 
inexperience or associations, and I would suffer forever the alleged 
evils of a gold standard before I would be a party to contempt for law, 
to an attack on our highest court and to a subversion of our form of 
government by loading it down with ungovernmental functions. [Ap- 
plause.] Before such a spectacle how would the shades of Jefferson, 
Jackson and Tilden shudder and shrink! [Applause.] 

While, as I have said, Mr. Bryan boldly professes to stand on every 
one of the strange planks of the Chicago platform, he adroitly attempts 
to divert Democratic attention from the revolutionary spirit which per- 
vades most of that document by confining the larger part of his public 
utterances to what he calls bimetallism; and he evidently hopes by 
magnifying the importance of this financial issue and distorting its 
phases so that it will appear to be the movement of the masses against 
the classes, to make Democrats forget their dislike of the plainly un- 
Democratic features of the platform and to persuade them that after 
all only an economic issue is involved and this should not justify a 
"breaking of party ties. But that kind of tactics should deceive no one. 
We believe that Mr. Bryan's arguments for free silver are fallacious and 
demagogic, but we oppose his candidacy not chiefly because he favors 
free coinage, but because his advocacy of that policy is but a feature 
of his support of a set of doctrines which we have been taught to regard 
as the very opposite of Democratic and the support of which demon- 
strates the unfitness of Bryan and his associates for positions of public 
trust. [Applause.] Let not this fact escape Democratic attention. 
Every appeal in the name of party regularity to support the Bryan 
ticket is an appeal to support the governmental ownership of railroads 
and telegraphs, to attack the independence of the federal judiciary, to 
abolish the merit system as a test of fitness for 'public office, to refuse 
to uphold the national credit by the issue of bonds when necessary, to 
scale down the public debt by repudiation, to invite not only the evils 
which would follow a silver standard, but these which would follow 
irredeemable paper money, for even purely fiat money seems to be rec- 
ommended in this Chicago platform. The men who represent such a 
conglomeration of poor principles and radical notions are not Demo- 
crats. [Applause.] They have no claim on Democrats, and all over the 
land to-day Democrats are rising to overthrow these party fetters which 
mean slavery, and to stand between the people and the certain injury 
which the party's rash leaders would inflict upon the nation. [Ap- 
plause.] 



14 



bryan's speeches. 

The revolutionary spirit which forced Bryan's nomination is mani- 
fested in his speeches now being delivered throughout the country. 
His conspicuous failure at Madison Square Garden to advance the cause 
of silver by close argument has induced him to abandon the weapons 
of the logician and statesman and to employ the arts of the orator. 
From the rear end of cars he has been flinging out social and political 
firebrands among the people. He appeals to the base instincts of the 
ignorant or to the misery of the distressed. He strives to array class, 
against class, to incite employe against employer, to stir up debtor 
against creditor, to make this a contest of the poor against the rich. 
May God prevent this incendiary's work! [Applause.] In this broad 
land it has been our proud boast that the avenues of success have been 
open to all. The rich to-day were the poor of yesterday. No families, 
of inherited wealth dominate our politics or our society. Before the 
law all men are equal. The same opportunities do not come to all men; 
some succeed, many fail, but no barrier to success or position is created, 
by law. Industrial conditions may be affected by unwise laws, and 
when this is demonstrated we attempt to change them through the 
opportunity which every man has to register his vote at the polls. But 
though some men succeed and many fail, this is the lot of life, and no 
candidate for the presidency has ever dared before to use this fact to* 
arouse man against man and to kindle the fires of social discontent 
and disorder. 

Proud as we have been of America's material prosperity, we have 
been prouder still of the self-reliant, independent and sensible spirit of 
her people. When foreign critics have told us that Democracy here 
would some day prove a failure, that universal suffrage would lead to 
anarchy, that class-feeling would be engendered which would result 
in riot or in the confiscation of property, we have laughed and pointed 
to the sturdy Americanism on our farms, to the influences of our public 
schools, to the respect for law and order in our cities, to the examples- 
of self-made men in every family, to the educating influences of our 
press, to the fullness and broadness of our charities, and more than all 
to the solid patriotism of our people. [Applause.] I believe that we 
can still depend on these. [Applause.] Bad as the times are, stagnant 
as industry is, distressed as many homes are for lack of employment,, 
the common sense of the American people will not be deceived by ap- 
peals to passion, but will perceive clearly what is the truth, namely, 
that present conditions are largely caused not by the influences against 
which Mr. Bryan, in lurid words, declaims, but by fear of the very rem- 
edies which he suggests. [Applause.] When this great shadow which, 
he and his associates have created passes off the surface of the financial 
and industrial world, then confidence will be restored, money will seek 
investment, factories will be reopened, and employment will be secure. 
[Applause.] There can be no prosperity without confidence, and Mr. 
Bryan's plan shatters confidence and portends business failures and 
panic. These mean more men out of employment, more homes without 
food and clothing, more misery and distress. 



15 



PLEAS FOR SILVER. 

All of Mr. Bryan's specious pleas and arguments for silver are based 
on the assumption that the free coinage of silver by the United States 
alone would establish and maintain bimetallism — the parity of gold and 
silver at the exchangeable ratio of 16 to 1. If that assumption is incor- 
rect or ill-founded, each of his arguments falls to the ground and every 
one of his predictions loses its force. Not one word has he uttered in 
advocacy of a silver standard. Not one word does he dare utter in be- 
half of a silver standard. He will declaim by the hour against the evils 
of gold monometallism, and nearly everything he says on that subject 
is equally applicable to silver monometallism also. Genuine bimetal- 
lism is a Democratic doctrine, but bimetallism can never be attained by 
the men who dominated the Chicago convention or by the method im- 
plied in the Chicago platform. [Applause.] There is reason to doubt 
whether the forces which controlled that convention ever desired to 
accomplish bimetallism. The word bimetallism does not appear in the 
platform. The convention by an overwhelming vote rejected a propo- 
sition pledging the government to maintain the parity of the two metals. 
The disposition of the convention, as indicated by its expressions and 
its actions, was toward silver monometallism or irredeemable fiat 
money. As well might the ark of the Covenant have been intrusted to 
the Philistines as to intrust the cause of bimetallism to the revolu- 
tionary horde behind Bryan. [Applause.] 

It is not a difficult task to show that under present conditions free 
coinage of silver by the United States alone would result in silver mono- 
metallism. Foolish experiments in that direction have already been 
tried and caused the loss of a great part of our gold from circulation. 
Part of it has gone abroad, withdrawn from investment in our indus- 
tries, and part has been hoarded for the day when it should bring a 
high premium. Our government can get none except by increasing the 
national debt and the burden of taxation. About $100,000,000 in gold 
is in the United States treasury to support the parity, not alone of the 
$346,000,000 of greenbacks, which was its original function, but the six 
hundred and twenty-five millions of silver currency which has been 
issued since. That frail foundation has been trembling since 1890 with 
the additional weight put upon it. Only by heroic means has the gov- 
ernment been able to prop up the immense superstructure. But even 
the prospect of unlimited silver coinage under present conditions would 
make that foundation disappear as if in a quicksand, and you and I and 
every man who has property or wages would find their value changed 
from a gold to a silver measure. [Applause.] 

This would be the certain result of imposing such an additional 
burden upon the government, but when with that in view we consider 
the disposition of foreign governments to strengthen their gold reserves 
and the suspension of free silver coinage in India, which has heretofore 
been the world's sink for all its surplus silver, but is so no longer, the 
conclusion is inevitable that we would be reduced to a silver basis, and 
to a very cheap silver basis at that. 



16 



GREAT INDUSTRIAL EVIL. 

Such a change of standards, such a readjustment of "values, not only 
in the fear which they would excite, but in the actual injury and injus- 
tice they would produce, would be the greatest commercial and indus- 
trial evil imaginable. It would mean in the first place the withdrawal 
of hundreds of millions of foreign capital invested in our industries. 
Sneer as Mr. Bryan may at our dependence upon foreign gold, the bare 
fact remains that without it the building of our great railroads, the 
opening of our great farm areas, the development of our mines, the 
building up of our industries — with all the stimulus to prosperity which 
these have given — would have been delayed many years. [Applause.] 
foreign gold — to Mr. Bryan's distorted vision and demagogic mind, a 
species of yellow fever — what is it but capital which gives work and 
wages to our citizens, adds to the product of our factories, makes neces- 
sities out of the former luxuries of life, increases the comforts and con- 
veniences of living, adds to our country's wealth and prosperity, until 
finally we will be rich enough and prosperous enough to send part of 
our capital to other less fortunate or advanced nations and perform 
the same good mission, selfish though it be, for other people? Who 
would reject it because it comes, as some of it probably does, from the 
drones of Europe? To what better use can the accumulated wealth of 
England's aristocracy be put than to build up American industries? 
[Applause.] 

The withdrawal of European capital would still further depress 
values and encourage panic. So large a proportion of our business is 
done on credit, and credit is such a slender support, that when credit 
is attacked it matters not how much money there may be in the coun- 
try, it will avail nothing to prevent the contraction of loans and the 
refusal of accommodation. These mean business failures — lcsses, sac- 
rifices of prices, diminished demand for commodities, closing mills, 
lack of employment, poverty and distress. Against the progress of this 
certain series of events no man nor measure can stand. No kind of 
relief is efficacious except the conviction of the people that the money 
which measures the exchangeable value of their commodities and serv- 
ices and underlies the structure of their system of credit is sound and 
stable and will remain so. [Applause.] 

CHARACTERISTIC OF POLITICAL REMEDIES. 

One characteristic of political remedies administered and recom- 
mended by quack political doctors is that they are alleged to cure all 
diseases. To every man in distress in any part of the country the de- 
monetization of silver is pointed out as the cause of his misery, and the 
remonetization of silver as his remedy. By reason of perfectly simple 
causes the prices of wheat and corn and other agricultural products 
have declined, but this decline is attributed by these political quacks to 
the demonetization of silver, and the farmer, along with every other 
man who finds it hard to make both ends meet, is told that by remon- 



17 



etizing silver wheat will go to a dollar a bushel and other farm products 
will rise proportionately. If this were true, rising prices would affect 
the commodities which a farmer buys, the interest he pays on his debts, 
the freight rates which determine the cost of getting his products to 
market, and he would be relatively no better off than before. To 
expect the farmer to accept so great a delusion is to presume upon his 
intelligence. Ask the farmers of my State why they are giving up the 
production of wheat and corn, and they will not tell you it is because 
of the depreciation of silver. They will point to these great Western 
prairies and tell you that they cannot compete with these in the growth. 
of the staple cereals. And they have taken to raising others crops 
which are more profitable and less competitive. 

The same tendency is manifest throughout the agricultural world. 
Not only have thousands of acres of Western lands in America been 
thrown open to cultivation within recent years, but in Russia, India 
and the Argentine Republic railroads and enterprise have brought large 
additional acreage under cultivation and poured millions of additional 
bushels upon the markets of the world. The same cheapening in the 
cost of boots and shoes, of hats and coats and other clothing, which has 
followed excessive production in the manufacture of those articles, has 
been manifest in the excessive production of agricultural products. It 
is the old familiar law of supply and demand. In my State of New 
York hay is selling at $15 per ton; last year it was $10 per ton — do our 
silver friends atttribute that to the demonetization of silver? [Ap- 
plause.] They ought to if they wish to be consistent. Silver dollars 
in the pockets of the mine-owners are of no benefit to Western farmers 
— what they want is prosperous conditions which will put silver dollars 
in their own pockets — dollars which, when taken out, will buy just as 
much as gold dollars. [Applause.] 

AS TO PRICES. 

However much the prices of agricultural products have declined, 
they have not declined more rapidly than the necessaries which the 
farmer buys, nor so rapidly as the freight rates which promote the 
market for his products. The report of the National Board of Trade 
shows that the average charge for carrying a ton of freight one mile 
on thirteen of the most important railroads of the United States has 
fallen from 3.08 cents in 1865, and 1.81 cents in 1870, to .76 cents in 1893. 
You will thus see that in 1865 it cost $30 to transfer one ton 1,000 miles 
and only $7.50 in 1893. [Applause.] 

In 1872, according to government reports, the price of transporting 
one bushel of wheat from Chicago to New York by lake and canal was 
24.47 cents; by lake and rail, 28 cents; by all rail, 33^ cents. In 1895, 
last year, by lake and canal, 4.11 cents; by lake and rail, 6.95 cents; 
by all rail, 12.17 cents. [Applause.] 

No such proportionate reduction has been seen in the price of wheat 
or corn. The average price of wheat in 1870 was 80 cents per bushel in 
gold. To-day it is 56 cents— a reduction since 1870 scarcely half as 

2 



18 



great as the reduction of freight rates — Mr. Bryan's assertions to the 
contrary notwithstanding. [Applause.] 

The Atlantic cable has produced the same result as regards the rate 
of interest on money that the opening of new lands, the extension of 
transportation facilities and excessive production have produced in the 
prices of wheat and corn. It taps the money supply of the world and 
brings it to our service. 

So long as we pay our debts in the kind of money we borrow, the 
rate of interest will continue to cheapen for the farmer, merchant, man- 
ufacturer and miner, and for those engaged in any other industry in 
this country. [Applause.] 

Our silver friends claim that the gold dollar has gone up to 200, 
while silver has neither gone up nor down. 

I answer that in 1873 the government rate of interest was 6 per 
cent.; the rate in any of the Western cities was from 1 to 2 per cent, 
per month, and money was hard to get at that. By this same Atlantic 
cable, reaching to money in England, Germany and Holland, the rate 
of interest on our government bonds has been reduced to from 3 to 3^ 
per cent., and the rate of interest in Western cities does not now exceed 
from 6 to 8 per cent, per annum, and good mortgages have been made 
in Chicago at 5 per cent. [Applause.] 

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad, the Burlington & 
Quincy, the Pennsylvania, all had bonds in 1873 bearing from 7 to 10 
per cent, interest per annum. Who paid that interest? The farmer 
when he paid his freight. The rate of interest to-day, with these bonds 
placed in London and in Europe, is on an average 4 per cent, per an- 
num; so that the man who had gold to loan in this country or in 
Europe in 1873 could get nearly double the rate of interest per annum 
that he can get to-day. [Applause.] Is not the value of the gold dollar 
regulated by the price that you can get per annum for it? If this is 
the case, then the price of the gold dollar is not 200, as our silver friends 
claim, but has been reduced by one-half because it will only bring to 
the owner about one-half of what it did twenty-five years ago. [Ap- 
plause.] There is a natural reason for this reduction in the price of 
gold. Why, last year the world produced over $200,000,000 of gold, 
nearly one-fourth of which was produced in the United States, and the 
production is steadily increasing year by year. Now this $200,000,000 
amounts to $27,000,000 more than all the gold and silver produced in 
the world in 1873. Why should it not be cheaper? [Applause.] 

. RATE OF INTEREST. 

The rate of interest in every country where they have a solid and 
fixed standard of money is nearly half of the rate prevailing in any 
silver country. A good illustration is found in the adjoining States of 
British Guiana and Venezuela. In British Guiana, where the standard 
is gold, the rate of interest is from 4 to 6 per cent, per annum, while in 
"Venezuela, a silver country, the rate is from 10 to 12 per cent., and this 
will follow in every silver country. The reason is plain: When you 



19 



loan money under a fixed standard, and agree to pay under the same 
standard, the lender can afford to loan his money at a cheaper rate 
than when he loans it in a currency that may depreciate before the 
return of his money. 

A silver standard would work particular injury to wage-earners. 
The rich and well-to-do can usually take care of themselves. But the 
man who has a vital interest in every day's wages, whose family de- 
pends upon those wages for its bread and meat, is the person first to 
feel the injury and last to feel any possible benefit from an inflation of 
the currency. Not only would he for one year, or two years, or per- 
haps many years, feel the effect of the prostration of industry and busi- 
ness which would at least be the first result of a change to the silver 
standard, but when that wore away, as it probably would in the course 
of time, and the full effects of an inflation of the currency under un- 
limited silver coinage began to be manifested, he would find the prices 
of food, of clothing, of rents rising, but his wages would remain sta- 
tionary, for it is an economic fact that in an era of rising prices wages 
are the last to feel the influence. 

So long as steady work is assured, the laborer is much better off 
under the conditions of falling prices such as we have had for many 
years, as the cost of production of commodities has been decreased 
by new inventions and improved methods of manufacture, for the neces- 
sities of life and even its luxuries have become cheaper, while by rea- 
son of various influences wages have risen. In 1870 the average wages 
paid to laborers was $302 per year. In 1890 these had increased to $485, 
more than 50 per cent., while during the same period the prices of 
commodities had fallen, the silverites tell us, from 25 to 40 per cent. 
Under the operation of a gold standard, therefore, no matter what its 
injuries may have been to other classes of citizens, the laborer is at 
least 75 per cent, better off than he was in 1870. [Applause.] Does he 
wish to reverse this condition and face lower wages and higher cost of 
living? I think these facts have only to be presented to the attention 
of the workingmen to convince them that any grievances which they 
may be persuaded they have, cannot be cured by the humbug remedies 
prescribed by Dr. Bryan. 

ESPECIALLY AFFECTED. 

There are some classes of employes who would be especially affected 
by a silver standard. I refer particularly to the 800,000 men who get 
their wages from steam and street surface railroads. Most of the 
money invested in these enterprises is represented in bonds whose prin- 
cipal and interest are payable in gold. The annual payments required 
by these obligations of indebtedness are hundreds of millions of dollars. 
If gold goes to a premium, the holders of these bonds insist that their 
terms shall be fulfilled, and the interest payable in gold, it means that 
the railroads have got to raise that amount of gold or the mortgages 
will be foreclosed and the properties sold. Every railroad employe 
knows what that means — a cutting down of expenses, disorganization, 
uncertaiu employment. If the companies have to pay a hundred cents 



20 



premium on gold to satisfy their interest demands, it means doubling 
their fixed charges, and this in the case of nine railroads out of ten 
means bankruptcy. 

They cannot increase their rate of fares, for that the legislatures 
will not permit. They cannot exact payment of fares in gold. There- 
fore, they must repudiate their obligations or cut down wages — they 
certainly cannot increase wages. Whichever horn of the dilemma they 
choose, therefore — a repudiation of obligations or a reduction of wages — 
the employe is no gainer, for even were there no reduction of wages 
under the free coinage of fifty-cent dollars he ought to receive twice as 
much wages as he did before, in order to put him on an equality with 
previous conditions. The purchasing power of his wages, if the rate 
remained the same, would be cut down one-half. 

Against such threatened calamities we have met as Democrats and 
as patriots to protest. Our purpose is too serious to permit differences 
on minor matters or personal jealousies to divide our councils or 
weaken our influence. We have come here as Democrats to exert such 
influence as we may have among Democrats for the good of our country 
and the preservation of our party organization for other periods of use- 
fulness. Renouncing as un-Democratic the work of the party organ- 
ization at Chicago, let us be true to every Democratic instinct at Indian- 
apolis. Let no man say that in this Convention any false note of De- 
mocracy was sounded. [Applause.] 

We stand for all that should inspire good citizenship — for honest 
money, enforcement of law and order, respect for authority, the pres- 
ervation of the national credit, the just payment of debts, the dignity 
and welfare of labor, the prosperity and fair name of America. United 
in such a cause, we can go forward with the American flag as our 
banner and the words of "National Democrats" inscribed on its folds. 
We know no sectional issue or interest. We stand behind the broad 
shield of patriotism, and in that sign we shall conquer. [Great and 
prolonged applause.] 

The Chairman : The roll of States will now be called 
for the announcement, by the chairmen of the several dele- 
gations, of members of the Committees on Credentials, on 
Permanent Organization, Order of Business and Rules, on 
Resolutions and Honorary Vice-Presidents, as provided in 
the report of the National Committee. The roll of States 
will be called first for announcement of members of Com- 
mittee on Credentials. As each State is called the chairman 
of the delegation will announce, or send to the Secretary's 
desk on a piece of paper, the name of the gentleman the 
delegation has selected to serve as its member of the Com- 
mittee on Credentials. 



21 

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll of States as fol- 
lows : Alabama. 

Thomas G. Jones, of Alabama: Mr. President, for mem- 
ber of the Committee on Credentials the Alabama delegation 
names John C. Eyster. 

The Secretary: Arkansas. 

S. W. Fordyce, of Arkansas: Mr. President, the Ar- 
kansas delegation announces the name of John M. Taylor 
as its member of the Committee on Credentials. 

The Secretary: California. 

Cassius Carter, of California: Mr. President, California 
announces Thomas T. Falk as her member of the Committee 
on Credentials. 

The Secretary: Colorado. 

Mr. Louis I. Ehrich, of Colorado: Mr. President, I 
would suggest that the chairman of each delegation, when 
called upon, announce the choice of his delegation for their 
member of the Committee on Credentials, their member of 
the Committee on Permanent Organization, their member 
of the Committee on Resolutions, and their choice for Vice- 
President, all at once; so as to avoid the necessity of making 
four calls. 

The Chairman: That will be done unless there is objec- 
tion. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and that 
method will be pursued. The chairman of each delegation, 
when his State is called, will announce the names of the gen- 
tlemen selected by the delegation to represent it on the Com- 
mittee on Credentials, the Committee on Permanent Organi- 
zation, the Committee on Platform and their choice for Vice- 
President. The Secretary will proceed with the call of the 
roll of the States. 

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll of States as 
follows: Alabama. 

Thomas G. Jones, of Alabama: Mr. President, the Ala- 
bama delegation has selected the following gentlemen to 



22 

serve it on the Committees: A. C. Danner on the Commit- 
tee on Permanent Organization, John C. Eyster on the Com- 
mittee on Credentials, Thomas G. Jones on the Committee 
on Platform, and James Weatherby as Vice-President. 

The Secretary: Arkansas. 

F. W. Fordyce, of Arkansas: Mr. President, for its mem- 
ber of the Committee on Credentials, the Arkansas delegation 
has selected John M. Taylor; as its member of the Commit- 
tee on Permanent Organization, . 

George M. Davie, of Kentucky: Mr. President, I move 
that the names be sent up on a slip of paper from each dele- 
gation covering all of the Committees and the Vice-President 
on one piece of paper. It will save us a great deal of time. 

The Chairman: Does the gentleman from Kentucky 
mean without calling the roll? 

George M. Davie, of Kentucky : It would not be neces- 
sary, Mr. President. 

James Parker, of New Jersey: Mr. President, I want 
to hear the names of the solid Democrats from the different 
States. 

George M. Davie, of Kentucky: Mr. President, they 
can be read from the Secretary's desk after they are sent up. 

George M. Gunn, of Connecticut: Mr. President, I 
move that the chairmen of the different delegations forward 
to the Chairman of this Convention a list of the officers 
selected by the delegations to represent them in this Conven- 
tion; and that the list be sent up at any time after the tem- 
porary adjournment of this Convention, or before. 

The Chairman: That is the substance of the motion of 
the gentlemen from Kentucky. That course will be pursued 
unless there is objection. 

George M. Davie, of Kentucky: Mr. President, I think 
that would be the better way. We can not hear or under- 
stand the names as they are given. If they are sent up in 



23 



writing they can be read from the Secretary's desk and 
everybody can hear them. 

The Chairman: Is there any objection to pursuing the 
course suggested by the gentleman from Kentucky? The 
chair hears none, and that course will be pursued. Is a roll 
call of the States desired? [Cries of "lS T o," "No," "No."] 

The Chairman (continuing) : Delegations will then for- 
ward the lists of their officers to the Secretary's desk. 

Mr. Hammill, of Illinois: Mr. President, I desire to 
offer a motion in reference to another matter, if it is in order. 

The Chairman: Wait until these committees are made 
up. The Convention will be in order while these names are 
being sent in. 

The list of Committeemen and Vice-Presidents, selected 
by the several delegations, having been received at the Sec- 
retary's desk, the Secretary announced the Standing Com- 
mittees and Honorary Vice-Presidents as follows: 



committee on credentials. 



Alabama — John C. Poster. 
Arkansas — J. N. Taylor. 
California — Thomas B. Pond. 
Connecticut — Charles S. Canfield. 
Colorado — Louis R. Ehrich. 
Delaware — J. Parke Postles. 
Florida — E. W. Coddington. 
Georgia — B. P. Jones. 
Illinois— J. T. Hoblitt. 
Indiana — S. M. Ford. 
Iowa — Henry Vollmer. 
Kansas — C. D. Hulett. 
Kentucky— O. H. Waddell. 
Louisiana — Fergus Kernan. 
Maine — R. D. Woodman. 
Maryland — Ogden A. Kirtland. 
Massachusetts — Godfrey Morse. 
Michigan — George S. Rice. 
Minnesota — Ernest Schrader. 
Mississippi — Walter E. Stokes. 
Missouri — S. C. Woodson. 



Montana — James T. Sandford. 
Nebraska — R. R. MacMullen. 
New Hampshire — Wendell Baker. 
New Jersey — John B. Green. 
New York — James W. Green. 
North Carolina — Sol. N. Cone. 
North Dakota— E. C. Tourtelot. 
Ohio — George E. Seny. 
Oregon — W. N. Whiden. 
Pennsylvania — John Cadwallader. 
Rhode Island — Edmund Walker. 
South Carolina — Frank Evans. 
South Dakota — William Erwin. 
Tennessee — Tully R. Mormick. 
Texas — J. T. Trezebant. 
Vermont — E. F. Brooks. 
Virginia — Goodrich Hatton. 
West Virginia — H. C. Simms. 
Washington — E. W. Pollock. 
Wisconsin — John H. Brennan. 
New Mexico — Andrew Johnston. 



24 



COMMITTEE ON PERMANENT ORGANIZATION. 



Alabama — 



D. Tanner. 



Arkansas — J. B. Prelock. 
California — Warren Olney. 
Colorado — Louis R. Enrich. 
Connecticut — Salmon Goodsell. 
Delaware — W. M. Ross. 
Florida — John L. Inglis. 
Georgia — J. H. Merrill. 
Illinois — C. H. Williamson. 
Indiana— C. A. O. McClelland. 
Iowa — S. H. Malory. 
Kansas — Edward Carrell. 
Kentucky — Rodney Haggard. 
Louisiana — E. H. Randolph. 
Maine — R. E. Herson. 
Maryland — Daniel M. Murray. 
Massachusetts — Henry P. Little. 
Michigan — Hewlitt C. Rockwell. 
Minnesota — E. P. Alexander. 
Mississippi — W. N. Bellamy. 
Missouri — George Robertson. 



Montana — Charles E. Conrad. 
Nebraska — R. S. Proudfit. 
New Hampshire — Josiah Carpenter. 
New Jersey — Thomas P. Curley. 
New York — James W. Eaton. 
North Carolina — H. E. Pries. 
North Dakota — R. B. Blakemore. 
Ohio — Michael Ryan. 
Oregon — Zera Snow. 
Pennsylvania — Pearson Church. 
Rhode Island — 
South Carolina — Frank Evans. 
South Dakota — Joseph Zitka. 
Tennessee — Peyton Smith. 
Texas — E. S. Conner. 
Vermont — John W. Gordon. 
Virginia — William V. Wilson^ Jr. 
Washington — L. W. Nestelle. 
West Virginia — L. J. Williams. 
Wisconsin — M. C. Meade. 
New Mexico — W. E. Dame. 



COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS. 



Alabama — Thomas G. Jones. 
Arkansas — S. W. Fordyce. 
California — John P. Irish. 
Colorado — Louis R. Ehrich. 
Connecticut — Lewis Sperry. 
Delaware — Levi A. Burtelott. 
Florida — T. A. Garby. 
Georgia — G. R. DeSaussure. 
Illinois — James N. Eckels. 
Indiana — Emory B. Sellers. 
Iowa — W. I. Babb. 
Kansas — W. H. Rossington. 
Kentucky — George M. Davie. 
Louisiana — Edgar H. Farrar. 
Maine— C. Vey Holman. 
Maryland— Philip D. Laird. 
Massachusetts — Henry W. Lamb. 
Michigan— Edwin F. Connelly. 
Minnesota — Thomas C. Kurtz. 
Mississippi— H. M. Street. 
Missouri— F. M. Black. 



Montana — A. H. Nelson. 
Nebraska — Albert Watkins. 
New Hampshire — A. C. Batchellor. 
New Jersey — Charlton P. Lewis. 
New York — Henry A. Richmond. 
North Carolina — Lindsay Patterson. 
North Dakota— P. R. Fulton. 
Ohio— Virgil P. Kline. 
Oregon— C. E. S. Wood. 
Pennsylvania — George F. Baer. 
Rhode Island — William C. Baker. 
South Carolina— W. W. Ball. 
South Dakota— W. Crofoot. 
Tennessee — Edmunds Cooper. 
Texas — M. Kleberg. 
Vermont — Wells Valentine. 
Virginia — Abe Fulkersun. 
Washington— W. C. Sharpstein. 
West Virginia — Alfred Caldwell, 
Wisconsin — William F. Vilas. 
New Mexico— W. B. Childers. 



25 



HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENTS. 

Alabama — James Weatherly. Montana — Preston H. Leslie. 

Arkansas — J. A. Reeves. Nebraska — S. G. Glover. 

California — John A. Stanly. New Hampshire — Josiah Carpenter. 

Colorado — Louis R. Ehrich. New Jersey — Otto Crouse. 
Connecticut — H. Holton Wood. New York — George J. McGee. 

Delaware — J. Parke Postles. North Carolina — Silas McBee. 

Florida — H. P. Sharon. North Dakota — D. P. McLaurin. 

Georgia — D. B. Hamilton. Ohio — James H. Outhwaite. 

Illinois — Thomas A. Moran. Oregon — H. L. Kelly. 

Indiana — Daniel Noyes. Pennsylvania — Thos. D. Hancock. 

Iowa — James Eiboeck. Rhode Island — Charles C. Nichols. 

Kansas — Samuel Kimble. South Carolina — W. R. Davis. 

Kentucky— J. M. Atherton. South Dakota — Thos. H. Campbell. 

Louisiana — T. N. Miller. Tennessee — S. R. Latta. 

Maine— G. H. Weeks. Texas— W. W. Leake. 

Maryland— J. A. C. Bond. Vermont — F. M. Meldon. 
Massachusetts — Wm. L. Douglass. Virginia — Joseph Christian. 

Michigan — James S. Upton. Washington — J. C. Holbrook. 

Minnesota — John Ludwig. West Virginia — R. H. Brown. 

Mississippi — Addison Craft. Wisconsin — J. G. Flanders. 

Missouri — S. M. Kennard. New Mexico — James Boyce. 

The Chairman: The Secretary will now announce the 
place of meeting of the various committees. 

The Secretary: The Committee on Credentials will 
meet at Room 38, Grand Hotel. 

[Cries of "when?" "At what hour?"] 

The Secretary: Immediately after the adjournment. 
The Committee on Resolutions will meet in Parlors 14 and 16, 
Grand Hotel, at the same time, immediately after adjourn- 
ment. The Committee on Permanent Organization will meet 
in the Century Club Room, Denison Hotel, at half-after two 
o'clock this afternoon. 

William J. Curtis, of £Tew Jersey: Mr. President, I 
move now that this Convention take recess until four o'clock 
this afternoon, at which time the Committee on Permanent 
Organization will probably be ready to report. 

The motion was seconded. 



26 

The Chairman: Gentlemen of the Convention, you have 
heard the motion. Are you ready for the question? Those 
in favor of the motion will say "Aye;" those opposed "E"o.' 
It seems to be carried. It is carried. The Convention takes 
recess until four o'clock this afternoon. * 



FIEST DAY.— Second Session. 

Tomlinson Hall 



Wednesday, September 2, 1896, 

4 O'CLOCK, p. M. 

The Convention met pursuant to adjournment. 

The Chairman: The Convention will be in order. The 
Chairman of the Committee on Credentials, Mr. John Bren- 
nan, of Wisconsin, will now make his report. 

Mr. Brennan: Gentlemen of the Convention, the Com- 
mittee on Credentials reports as follows: 

There are present in this Convention 824 delegates [applause], rep- 
resenting forty-one States and three Territories, a list of which is here- 
with submitted. We recommend that those present be entitled to the 
full vote to which their States and Territories shall be respectively- 
entitled. 

As to the contest with reference to the delegation of the Stat© of 
Connecticut, we recommend that the action of the National Committee 
in seating the delegation returned by the State convention be confirmed. 
[Applause.j 

The Chairman: Gentlemen, you have heard the report. 
Are you ready for the question? Those in favor of the re- 
port will say "Aye;" those opposed "No." It seems to be 
carried. It is carried. 

Mr. C. H. Williamson, of Illinois: I have the following 
resolution from the Illinois delegation to offer: 

Resolved, That the National Democratic Convention of the United 
States, now in session, extend an invitation to the Cook County Sound 
Money Marching Club to seats in this Convention, and the doorkeepers 
are notified to admit all members of the organization upon exhibiting 
their respective badges. 



27 



I move, sir, the adoption of the resolution. 

The Chairman: If there is no objection, I will put the 
question. All in favor of recognizing the sturdy Democracy 
of Illinois by letting 300 delegates of a club into this Conven- 
tion, and entitled to seats in this Convention, will say "Aye;" 
those opposed "No." It seems to be carried. It is carried. 

The Committee on Permanent Organization will now re- 
port. 

Daniel M. Murray, of Maryland: Mr. Chairman, the 
Committee on Permanent Organization, of which I am one, 
was delayed a little, and I left the chairman, I suppose, a 
half or three-quarters of an hour ago writing up the report, 
and he will doubtless be in in a few minutes. 

The Chairman: While waiting, I am sure it will give 
this Convention great pleasure to hear Dr. Everett, of Massa- 
chusetts. 

DR. EVERETT'S SPEECH. 

Mr. Chairman, Fellow-Citizens — I will not limit it to fellow- 
Democrats; I say fellow-patriots, and fellow- Americans, who love 
and honor their country. Massachusetts has sent her delegation 
here to assist and strengthen her sisters of the South amd the West in 
repelling the invasion which has risen in their midst. [Applause.] 
Massachusetts and our Eastern and Northern States have heard them- 
selves reviled and abused. They were told at Chicago, in that conven- 
tion conducted by — I don't know what party, but certainly not by the 
old Democratic party [applause] — they were told that the East and 
the North were to have no part in the selection of a Democratic candi- 
date or a Democratic platform. We were told that we might stay out 
in the cold, and that the warm-hearted South and the more progressive 
West had no use for us. Well, Mr. Chairman, Massachusetts has been 
out in the cold, in the cold east wind, ever since she was created, and 
she has managed to hold her own, and to keep to her aneient principles 
of liberty and honor, whether others swerve from them or not. 

I had the honor — I had the very great honor — of being admitted to 
the councils of that little band of patriots who, on the night of Friday, 
the 9th of August, in the Auditorium Annex in Chicago, determined 
that they would not sumbit to the invasion which was directed against 
the ancient honor and the credit of the whole country. [Applause.] 
On that occasion, sir, I took the liberty, although a solitary member 
from Massachusetts, almost a solitary member from New England, to 
pledge the credit of my ancient State that we would not be deluded by 






28 



false brethren nor by robbers, but that we would come to whatever 
convention the South and West might call to strengthen their hands in 
this great fight. 

We saw, Mr. President, that that invasion was directed against the 
credit of the country, against the faith of contracts, against personal 
liberty, against the Supreme Court, against law and order, against the 
standing of America with her sister nations; and now here we are, sir, 
nearly sixty strong, on this floor, to stand for our ancient principles. 
Massachusetts is here for the credit of the country. [Applause.] Mas- 
sachusetts is here for the payment of debts in full, without scaling and 
without repudiation. [Applause.] Massachusetts is here for sound 
money, aye, for that form of sound money that we already have on 
international agreement — gold. [Applause.] Massachusetts is for gold 
here on this floor. [Applause.] Why, fellow-citizens, talk about an 
international agreement in favor of bimetallism! Haven't you got at 
this moment all the nations of the world whose word is worth anything 
united for the gold standard, which is the one we have? Massachu- 
setts is here now against all class distinctions. [Applause.] 

The Democracy of Massachusetts knows no distinction between the 
rich and poor. [Applause.] It knows no distinction between the 
farmer and the manufacturer. It knows no distinction between the 
man who raises grain and the man who takes it to market. It knows 
no distinction between the capitalist and the wage-earner. Massachu- 
setts Democracy knows no distinction between the North and the South, 
the East and the West. [Great applause, continued for one minute and 
renewed. Cries of "What's the matter with Massachusetts?" and "She's 
all right."] And, above all, sir, the Democracy of our State, the inde- 
pendents of our State, the sound men of our State, will not stand the 
insults that. have been cast upon the administration of that man who 
has preserved the credit and the honor of America untainted. We 
stand by President Cleveland. [Great applause, delegates rising to 
their feet.] 

We are not here pledged to any special candidate or candidates. 
Alas, Mr. Chairman, two months ago, sixty brief days, Massachusetts 
might have presented to this Convention a candidate for President that 
every sound money Democrat — aye, that many Republicans — would 
have supported [immense cheering], but, sir, that noble heart, that 
went to Chicago in the attempt to stem the tide of anarchistic invasion, 
that noble heart broke in agony when he saw the act of the so-called 
Democrats, and he went home to the shore of the Atlantic to die of grief 
at the folly of his Democratic countrymen. [Applause.] 

Massachusetts also thinks, sir, that she might this day name a can- 
didate for President, one who in the Cabinet of President Cleveland in 
two high offices has done Massachusetts abundant honor. Massachu- 
setts has a representative in Mr. Cleveland's Cabinet that, when Illinois 
was attacked with anarchy and socialism, drew the ancient sword of 
the law and waved it in defense of peace and good order. [Applause.] 
But, sir, we are not here for any particular candidate. Gentlemen of 
the South and West, Gentlemen of the Pacific and the center, give us 



29 



any two good national men, any two men that the country knows for 
honor, for distinction, for purity, for worth in public or private life, 
North or South, civilian or soldier, and Massachusetts will take the 
candidates of this Convention and do ail she can for their support. 
[Applause.] 

We are told that we might do as well by accepting the candidates 
nominated at St. Louis — I mean the first St. Louis convention. [Laugh- 
ter.] We are told that for sound money's sake we have nothing to do 
but go over into that camp. Mr. President, I respectfully decline to 
admit that all public virtue is concentrated in the Republican party. 
[Applause.] If it were only for this year, if it were only for this cam- 
paign, I might think differently of what we are here to do; but we are 
not here only for this campaign; we are here for 1900; we are here for 
the future. [Applause.] 

Mr. Chairman, there are hundreds and thousands, aye, I might say 
millions, of young men who are asking for whom they shall vote. There 
are hundreds and thousands of young men who know nothing of the 
traditions of the party. They know nothing of Hamilton and Jefferson, 
nothing of Webster and Calhoun, hardly even of Lincoln. 

They want to know what party to join themselves to, that is the 
progressive party, the party of the day and the hour; and I say this 
Convention is to be not the last, but the first of a series of conventions. 
[Applause.] This is to be the first convention of the party of Young 
America, to which those young men are going to rally eight million 
strong in a very few years. And so, Mr. Chairman, I thank you in- 
finitely for this chance of speaking to you. We are fighting not merely 
for the ancient honor of an historical party, not merely against an- 
archism and Populism, not merely against protection and paternal gov- 
ernment, but we are fighting that the United States may stand in the 
face of her sister nations undimmed in honor and unshaken in credit. 
[Great applause.] 

Ever since the convention at Chicago the issue of free coinage of 
silver has been the supreme and overshadowing issue of the country. 
Our late brethren at Chicago, if I may be allowed to use so indelicate an 
expression, have nominated a candidate of that so-called Democratic 
party, who himself has declared on frequent occasions that the contest 
was irreconcilable, and that the battle was to the death, and as a fit 
culmination to that contest our brethren at Chicago repaired to the 
camp of the Populists to obtain recruits at the price of inserting in 
their platform all its nefarious tenets and creeds, and it is fit that to a 
depreciated and debauched currency should be added an assassinated 
court and a powerless executive. [Applause.] 

THE PERMANENT ORGANIZATION. 

The Chairman: The Committee on Permanent Organi- 
zation will now make their report, James W. Eaton, of ISTew 
York, Chairman. 



30 



James W. Eaton, of New York: The Committee on 
Permanent Organization, Rules and Order of Business 
respectfully reports as follows: 

The Committee recommends Senator Donelson Caffery, of Louis- 
iana, for Permanent Chairman of the Convention [applause]; John R. 
Wilson, of Indiana, for Permanent Secretary, with the power to ap- 
point such assistants as may he necessary; that the present Temporary 
Sergeant-at-Arms be made Permanent Sergeant-at-Arms of the Con- 
vention. [Applause.] 

The Committee further reports that the rules of the National Dem- 
ocratic Convention of 1892 [applause] and the parliamentary procedure 
of the Fifty-third Congress be adopted as the rules of this Convention. 
[Applause.] 

The Committee further reports that the order of business be as 
follows: 

1. The report of Committee on Credentials. 

2. The report of Committee on Resolutions. 

3. The roll-call of States and nomination of Honorary Vice-Presi- 
dents and Secretaries of the Convention. 

4. Roll-call of States for nomination of National Committeemen. 

5. Roll-call of States for nomination and election of candidates 
for President of the United. States. 

6. Roll-call of States for nomination of candidates for Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

The Committee also recommends the adoption of the following reso- 
lution: 

"Resolved, That it is the sense of this Convention that permanent 
organization of the National Democratic Party, in convention now as- 
sembled, be advisable and necessary. [Applause.] That the National 
Committee of this party shall call future conventions of the party, ap- 
portion delegates thereto, provide the time and place for the holding 
thereof, and generally perform such duties as devolve upon the Commit- 
tee of a political party." 

Mr. Chairman, I now move the adoption of the report. 

The Chairman: Gentlemen, you have heard the report 
of the Committee on Permanent Organization. Are you 
ready for the question? Those in favor of the adoption of 
the report will say "Aye;" those opposed "No." It seems 
to be carried — is carried. I will appoint the. gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, Mr. Bullitt, and the gentleman from Minnesota, 
Mr. Lawler, to escort the Permanent Chairman to the plat- 
form. 



31 

Mr. Caffery was escorted to the platform by the gentle- 
men named. 

Mr. Flower: It is my pleasure to introduce your Per- 
manent Chairman, and I now resign the gavel to his hands. 

CHAIRMAN CAFFERY'S SPEECH. 

Senator Caffery was received with cheers on taking the 
chair: 

I tender this Convention my deepest thanks for the high honor of 
selecting me to preside over its deliberations. I shall always regard it 
as the highest ever conferred upon me. [Applause.] 

Charged by our party with the function of ministering in its temple 
of faith and teaching the people its true doctrines, our priests have 
desecrated its altars, broken its shrines and taught false doctrines to 
the people. [Applause.] We now enter the sanctuary of the temple 
and take possession of the ark of the Covenant of our faith, which we 
will hereafter perpetually guard, protect and defend. We will purify 
its desecrated altars and rebuild its broken shrines. And, lest the 
hearts of the people be stolen away from true Democratic faith — the 
faith of our fathers and founders — we must separate from our brethren 
who have wrought this evil, and from those who have followed their 
evil teaching. We cannot follow them in the road they have taken, for 
their feet are swift to destruction and their way is the way of death. 
[Applause.] The ties that bound us were as strong as hooks of steel, 
and we part from them in sorrow. 

Loyalty to party discipline and organization has ever been the pride 
and strength of our party. Loyalty to principle has ever been, and 
ever will be, its cardinal and leading tenet, paramount to all others, 
binding in conscience and guiding the action of every true Democrat. 

If we do not look into evidence aliunde to show the Michigan 
frauds and other devious acts and practices designed to pack the con- 
vention, the Chicago platform has the seal and impress of our party, 
and claims its allegiance. But it is a mere simulacrum — a form without 
the substance of Democracy, and no Democrat is bound by it, nor is it 
entitled to his fealty. [Applause.] The declarations of that platform 
are "open, palpable and flagrant" departures from all that Democracy 
has stood for. They assail the money standard of the country and 
declare for the inflated and depreciated standard of free silver at 16 to 1. 

They assail the right and power of the executive to enforce the law 
and to protect property under the control and in the custody of the 
Federal courts in any State in the Union; they attack the integrity of a 
co-ordinate branch of the government; they declare that the function of 
issuing paper money is to be exclusively exercised by the government 
itself; they assail the right of the citizen to contract payment in any 
legitimate commodity; for they declare that the obligations of the gov- 



32 



ernment, for which gold was received, and for the payment of which in 
the same coin the national faith is pledged, may be paid in a depreci- 
ated coin. And we declare that each and all of these attacks and dec- 
larations are un-Democratic. [Applause.] They are an assault upon 
the Constitution, the time-honored principles of the Democratic party, 
and the distinguished patriot and statesman who has twice led it to the 
only victories it has achieved in thirty-six years. [Great applause.] 

THE ISHMAEL OF PLATFORMS. 

It is the Ishmael of platforms. It raises its hand against some of 
the principles of both parties, and nearly all the principles of the Demo- 
cratic party. It is begotten of the unhallowed union between Democ- 
racy, Populism and anarchy. And that the Scriptures may be fulfilled, 
"it will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the face of the earth." [Ap- 
plause.] 

We hold that no argument is needed to show the revolutionary and 
anarchistic character of the doctrine that the laws cannot be enforced 
in a State to protect property which is in the jurisdiction of Federal 
courts, or to protect the United States mails, or that the Supreme Court 
ought to be reorganized; or that the national honor should be stained 
or the national faith violated; or that the freedom of private contract 
ought to be limited; or that the function of issuing paper money ought 
to be exclusively exercised by the Federal government. We hold that 
the theory of free coinage of silver with gold at the ratio of 16 to 1 ad- 
mits of argument, but we hold that the weight of authority, the strength 
of reasoning and the facts of history all point to its fallacy and the 
ruinous consequences of its adoption. We hold that it will rob the poor 
man of his wage and the rich man of his wealth, the widow of her sav- 
ings, the child of his patrimony, the soldier of his pension, the indus- 
trious of his toil and the inventor of the reward of his genius. [Ap- 
plause.] We hold that it will demoralize and seriously disturb the im- 
mense trade and commerce of the Republic, and drive the country to a 
discredited, depreciated and depreciating standard; smite our finances 
as with a palsy and trade with a blight. We hold that the Nation's 
credit will fall prostrate, its obligations will be dishonored, and its un- 
sullied character will be stained with fraud and deceit. 

We claim that these averments are true, established by historical 
fact, by unanswerable reason, the opinions of the most distinguished 
political economists and the common sense and common honesty of the 
largest portion of our fellow-citizens. 

The credulity and cupidity of some of our good citizens have been 
played upon and aroused by artful fanatics and cunning demagogues. 
There are, however, and candor will compel the admission from any 
fair-minded man, many honest, respectable, patriotic and intelligent 
men who cling with all the strength of conviction to the specious, but 
unsound, theory of bimetallism at 16 to 1. If their theory is denounced 
as false and pernicious, no imputation is cast upon their character, nor 
any slur upon their intelligence. 



33 



The free coinage of silver is, and has been since Mr. Cleveland's 
inauguration, the supreme, overshadowing issue before the country. 
Upon that issue the President and a majority of his party took opposite 
sides. In consequence, he has been powerless to effect financial reform 
and secure immunity from gold-raiding on the treasury. 

Since the inception of the struggle for free silver, no compromise 
has been possible. Our brethren knew that the battle was on to the 
death. The nominee of the so-called Democratic party has, on several 
occasions, proclaimed the irreconcilable nature of the conflict. It is a 
fitting culmination of such a contest for our brethren to obtain allies 
from Populism at the price of incorporating its nefarious doctrines in 
their platform and attempting to pass them off as genuine Democracy. 
It was fit that to a degraded and depreciated currency should be added 
an- assassinated judiciary and a powerless executive. 

ARE NOT TRAITORS. 

Fellow-citizens, we are not traitors to our party. [Applause.] We 
are in the house of our fathers. [Applause.] We cannot be driven 
from it. We will defend the honor of our country and the integrity of 
our principles as long as life endures. We can neither be ousted of 
our political heritage nor forced into the ranks of our old-time ad- 
versary. We intend to preserve intact, unimpaired and unsullied, by 
and through the organization which we perfect to-day, the Democracy 
of Jefferson, Jackson, Benton and Cleveland. [Applause.] We intend 
to furnish a refuge and an abiding place for such of our brethren as, 
shocked and grieved at the betrayal of their principles at Chicago, are 
inclined to go to the Republican camp. 

The principles of Democracy are imperishable. [Applause.] 
They are antagonistic to the paternalism of the Republican and the 
Populist, the destructiveness of the anarchist and the vagaries of the 
inflationist and repudiator. Byron wrote: "While the Coliseum stands, 
Rome shall stand, and while Rome stands, the world." We say: "While 
Democracy lasts, the Republic shall stand [applause], and while the 
Republic stands — human liberty." [Applause.] 

For a season our party may stray after false doctrines and flounder 
amid quagmires, until the beacon light of truth breaks upon it. It will 
rise from every fall, like Antaeos of old, and "e'en in its ashes will live 
its wonted fires." [Applause.] If, in the decree of fate, our party 
must perish, let no historian write such epitaph on its tomb as this: 
"Came to an untimely end from swallowing political and financial 
poison," [laughter] but rather let this epitaph be written over its hon- 
ored grave, dug amid the ruins of the Capitol: "It did not survive the 
loss of liberty, the destruction of the Republic, and the decay of public 
and private morals." [Applause.] 

We are the propagandists of no new creed. We are the upholders 
of the old. We appeal from Democracy drunk with delusion to Democ- 
racy sobered by reason. [Applause.] With an abiding faith in the 
intelligence and honesty of our people, we lay before them and the 

3 



. _ ,. ZZ3 



34 



world the reasons that prompt us to unfurl the old flag of Democracy 
that has floated over many a triumph and many a defeat and never yet 
soiled by repudiation or stained by dishonor. 

We deem it wise to pursue an aggressive rather than a negative 
policy; to be Achilles dragging Hector around the walls of Troy rather 
than Achilles sulking in his tent. We propose to make a funeral pyre 
of the cadavers of Populism and anarchy. We propose to drag behind 
our triumphant chariot wheels, in defeat and disgrace, around the 
national Capitol, the dead Frankenstein personifying their pernicious 
creed and their turbulent fanaticism. 

We cannot make bed-fellows, even in a night of furious storm and 
thick darkness, of our life-long antagonists. We cannot, even to escape 
as great evils as are the necessary result of the success of the Chicago 
platform, be the executioners of our loved and venerated creed. We can- 
not, even by implication, be held to the false theory that the people can 
be made rich by taxation, nor to the theory that the Feredal power and 
treasury can or ought to be used to impair the autonomy of the States, 
on one hand, and on the other to dispense largess to favored classes. The 
election of McKinley, or of Bryan, with our support, would mean the de- 
struction of our whole party for a generation. For, when our people re- 
cover from the debauch of Populism and anarchy, they will discard the 
men who have led their orgy. [Applause.] If we go to McKinley, 
those men will be the recognized exponents of Democracy. When the 
fumes of the debauch are dissipated and sober reason resumes her sway, 
our flock will turn toward its fold only to find it destroyed. We, there- 
fore, stand fast. [Applause.] We sound a bugle call throughout the 
land for all Democrats to rally for the support of government and law, 
for the honor of their country, and for the maintenance and preserva- 
tion of their creed, its memories and its glories. If not heeded now, it 
will be in the near future. And then those clouds which lowered over 
our political fortunes and darkened our councils will take flight; those 
opposed eyes which lately met in party conflict will be turned all one 
way, and a united and triumphant Democracy will march on to victory 
under the aegis of the Constitution and under the precepts of the apos- 
tles of our faith. [Great applause.] 

[Calls for "Irish," "Irish," "Irish."] 

The Chairman: The Chair recognizes Hon. John P. 
Irish, of California. 

Mr. John P. Irish, of California: 

Mr. Chairman, my fellow-citizens of the Republic, in this Con- 
vention there lurks no sinister motive, and here there hides no covert 
and diseased ambition. [Applause.] The spot chosen for this Conven- 
tion is full of memories that apply to the conditions under which it has 
met. A generation ago there met in the city of Indianapolis a Demo- 
cratic convention — a Democratic convention to make a platform, name 



35 



its chosen candidates and organize a fight that had in it no hope' of 
victory. Therefore, the purpose of that convention was solely the re- 
declaration of the principles of this historic party. 

And that Democratic gathering met under such circumstances and 
for such high purposes, organized, sat and deliberated, though there 
were trained upon it batteries of shotted cannon, though there hung 
over it the awful shadow of physical extermination by artillery. But 
nothing in the terrifying circumstances that threatened it, nor in the 
hopelessness of its cause, deterred the gallant, old, time-honored and 
tried Democracy of the commonwealth of Indiana from declaring the 
full counsel of God, affirming its principles, and going to its fellow- 
citizens upon their declaration. [Applause.] 

We are met here to-day delivered from the threat of physical ex- 
termination, but we are met here under the threat of an extermination 
of that which is dearer than life. We are met here to defend against 
a fatal attack on the public credit, the national honor and good name, 
and the private and personal honesty of the individual. [Applause.] 
And what are all the materialities of life, what are all the physical 
things that minister unto men, when honor is lost and national pride 
and the self-respect of the individual? We are met here to face a crisis 
more serious in its projected consequences, if those who assail us shall 
succeed, than any crisis that is to be met by merely physical force. 

We are met to oppose the moral force of principle and conviction to 
those propositions which threaten to undermine all that makes the Re- 
public dear, everything that maintains the independence of the com- 
monwealth, through assailing and assaulting and destroying the inde- 
pendence of the individual citizen who in the mass constitutes the 
commonwealth. We are met here as the representatives of a party 
that in times of physical trial and threat has abided by its convictions; 
and we are here now to oppose those convictions and principles of an 
organization that has filched its name, that has debauched its princi- 
ples, that has replaced and supplanted them by a code, by a creed, by a 
faith, that have been derived from the school in politics to which we 
have been opposed from the beginning of the division of parties in the 
Republic. [Applause.] 

PRAISE FOR CLEVELAND. 

We represent that organization upon those principles which, stead- 
fastly abided by through the civil struggle and after its close finally 
found advanced to its leadership that magnificent personality, that in- 
carnation of Democratic principle, that everlasting moral principle 
which must pervade all government made incarnate in the flesh — Grover 
Cleveland. [Applause.] We represent that organization and those 
principles which, under his leadership, upon platforms declared, as ours 
shall be declared, in line with the ancient principles of human liberty, 
declared by the fathers of the Republic and the founders of our party 
in three great national contests, won a majority of the popular vote at 
the polls, and in two of them secured triumph in the electoral 



36 



colleges. We represent those principles. And we are here to 
swear with Jackson "by the eternal" that the moral strength that has 
come into the marrow and bone of this party by reason of those bat- 
tles and those victories shall neither be obscured to our countrymen, be- 
littled in history nor submerged under Populism [applause], whether 
it be declared by the Populist convention at Chicago or the Populist 
convention at St. Louis, the two conventions of the year, alike in pur- 
pose, alike in declarations, alike in the fallacy of their principles and 
the contemptibility of their vagaries; in fact, the two twin conventions 
of the year, and not the "Heavenly Twins," either. [Applause.] 

We are here to stand for all that has been gained. We are here to 
stand for that victory over the avarice of the material age which was 
won when Grover Cleveland smote with his renewing hand the appar- 
ently dried-up fountain of unselfishness in this Republic and it became 
| affluent under his touch. [Applause.] We are here to stand by that 
courageous patriotism manifested in him when he exorcised the evil 
spirit of sectionalism [applause] which for a generation had hovered 
over the South, and enabled that equal section of our beloved country 
to come for the first time after the civil struggle and sit at the national 
table "above the salt," [applause] permitting every Southern country- 
man of ours to stand up and say, "I am a man," and turn his forehead 
to the stars [applause] an equal citizen. 

We are here to stand by that plea made for the plain people of the 
land — that courageous and heroic demand — that Federal taxation should 
be for public purposes and not for private gain [applause], and that 
the public taxing power under the Constitution, a burden always upon 
the citizen, should only be in such weight and volume as might be 
measured and limited by a government administered with the most 
scrupulous economy. [Applause.] We are here to denounce, right and 
left, the enemies of all that we have gained since 1884. We are here to 
denounce the Republican party for that, by the extravagance of con- 
gressional appropriations [applause], it has so enlarged the deficiency 
of revenue as to form an excuse for a renewal of the pernicious and 
paternal policy of protection. [Applause.] 

POPULISTS OF CHICAGO AND ST. LOUIS. 

We are here on the left hand to antagonize, arraign and denounce 
the Populists of Chicago and St. Louis [applause] for that, by their 
threat involved in the free coinage of silver and a slump to a financial 
foundation made up of a depreciated and fluctuating currency, they 
have so destroyed public confidence and made trade timid as to par- 
alyze the activities of the people of this Republic, to limit trade and 
reduce consumption to such an extent that the present impost and ex- 
cise laws passed by Congress do not produce the normal revenue that 
they would yield if confidence were abroad in the land and trade were 
brisk and labor employed, if wages were in circulation and prosperity 
were abroad in the Republic. [Applause.] We arraign, then, these 
two enemies of the plain people of the Republic as co-conspirators in 
complementary and reciprocating policies which have produced the con- 



37 



dition of which both hypocritical gatherings raised the whiney voice 
of complaint and accusation. [Applause.] The candidate of one com- 
bination standing for an advance of prices by that artifice called pro- 
tection, and preaching to the people the gospel of the benefit of high- 
prices for the necessaries of life; the other conspirator represented by 
a candidate for the presidency who is preaching to the people the gospel 
of high prices to be secured by reducing the purchasing power of their 
money. [Applause.] Each policy meaning a burden upon the industry 
of the laborer, upon the profits of enterprise, and upon the avails of in- 
vestment, one proposing to effect the same purpose by artifice on the 
right hand by increasing taxation to increase prices, and the other pro- 
posing to increase prices by robbing labor of half the purchasing power 
of the money that it earns. [Applause.] 

We stand where Jefferson stood, where Jackson stood, where Cleve- 
land stands [applause], crying to these twin daughters of the Horse 
Leech, "a plague upon you both!" [Applause.] Out of this hall, 
illuminated by the memories that stand around us like a cloud of wit- 
nesses while we meet, there will go to the Republic a note of inspiration, 
there will go to the people of this land a restatement of the simple 
theory of government to which Jefferson, the philosopher of the Revolu- 
tion, devoted his life, that scheme of government being that the sole 
study of statesmanship in a free land is the adjustment and alignment 
of legislation with the irrepealable laws of nature. [Applause.] 

The candidate of the Populist daughter of the Horse Leech deals in 
phrases, and one of them is, "We are compelled to say farewell to those 
who advocate government by the press and syndicates." Aye, this 
gentleman, standing himself as the agent, propagandist and commercial 
traveler [laughter and applause], of a syndicate greedier than a cor- 
morant [a cry "Good"], a syndicate which has gained millions upon 
millions from the silver mines of the West and of Mexico, a syndicate 
that stands confessed upon the tongue of its commercial representative, 
now traveling the country tooting for custom for it [applause], as in 
the field for the sole and only purpose of advancing the price of its 
products by making people believe that it Will be to their advantage. 
We are here in antagonism to all this. We are here to say to this agent 
of the silver syndicate, this commercial traveler of the millionaire min- 
ers [applause], we are here to say to him that we stand against his 
assault upon that branch of the Federal government by our fathers 
provided to preserve permanency in our institutions. [Applause.] 

WHAT THEY OPPOSE. 

We are here to say that the Federal judiciary shall not be made the 
tool and puppet of the syndicate which he represents. We are here to 
say that, after the way of the fathers, we stand by that written Consti- 
tution which is the chart and guide of our liberties and the limitation 
upon the powers of our government. We are here to say to the Amer- 
ican people that that written document, confessed by public writers and 
the leaders of men in every civilized nation on earth to be the greatest 
monument to human wisdom and foresight that the world has seen 



38 

since the decalogue was written upon the tablets of stone amid the 
thunders of Mount Sinai — we are here to say to our countrymen, "Be 
careful; give attention and counsel, that the great and wise charter 
shall not be carelessly amended." 

We are here to say to those who follow the left-hand daughter of 
the Horse Leech in abusing the Supreme Court for that it has said that 
the Federal Constitution does not provide for the imposition of an in- 
come tax — we are here to say to our countrymen, "An amendment of 
the Constitution to secure an imposition of an income tax is unneces- 
sary." The Constitution provides three methods of taxation — by im- 
post, by excise, and by direct tax to be levied upon the States in pro- 
portion to their population. [Applause.] If it be true that a majority 
of my countrymen desire that form of taxation, a road thereto is open 
without making a breach in Federal Constitution. [Applause.] Resort 
to the imposition of your, direct tax, if you will, and then, under our 
theory of the Constitution, the States being endowed with authority to 
do all that is not forbidden to them by the Federal charter, may, in 
distributing that direct tax, consider the ability of their able citizens to 
pay it in the form of a tax upon their income. [Applause.] It would 
be well for those men who think that the wise work of the fathers is 
to be destroyed and a structure in its place rebuilt by boy orators of 
the Platte [applause] — it would be well for them to renew their respect 
for what the fathers have done by a study of what that work which 
they did, permits us to do in the meeting of a situation which may de- 
mand a policy of temporary expediency. 

Standing for all this, facing with a stout right arm and with a stout 
left arm these twin supporters of constitutional heresies and policies of 
oppression, we stand and stand for the rights of the plain people, for 
the perpetuity of the Republic, for the maintenance of its institutions, 
for their permanency, and under them for the continued and peaceable 
prosecution of the enterprises which are suggested and generated in 
the manly independence and individuality of the citizens of the Re- 
public. 

ROBERT BRUCE'S EXAMPLE. 

Our position to-day is to be distinguished in the history of the 
United States. We take principle in our hands, and with that as our 
sole shield go forth to battle. We go forth to battle beset on all sides 
by enemies in positive antagonism to each other, but by principle in 
negative alliance. 

When Scotland had suffered long from foreign invasion and from 
internecine disturbance, until the spirit of Scottish patriotism and sense 
of country and love of land had almost yielded to years of oppression 
and ill-fate, there appeared upon the scene the great Scotchman, Robert 
Bruce, and with his sword, that gleamed with the fire that burned in his 
heart for his country, he carved out for her a place and a destiny 
amongst the nations of the world, with one hand driving the foreign foe 
back across the Scottish border, and with the other, by condemnation 



39 



and timely punishment, subduing internal treason; and when Scotland, 
long enjoying the benefit of the individuality and independence that he 
had given her, came to mourn by his death-bed, he said: "I made a 
promise to my God, long years ago, that before I died I would visit the 
holy sepulcher at Jerusalem, but mortality has stricken me and death 
hovers over my pillow, and the promise to my God cannot be redeemed. 
Hear you, William Wallace, when I die, take my heart from my ribs 
and carry it and lay it on the sepulcher of my Savior and redeem my 
promise." And Wallace, when the great king lay silent in death, took 
from his ribs his heart and, inclosing it in a silver casket, gathered 
around him Scotland's chivalry and started upon the long pilgrimage 
to the Holy City. On the way, on Spanish soil, encountering the Sara- 
cen, the common enemy, and battle being offered, when the crisis of 
that action at arms came he seized the silver casket that contained the 
heart of Bruce and, throwing it in the thick of the fight, said, "Scotland, 
follow!" and the flower of Scottish chivalry followed the heart of Bruce 
— followed it regardless of consequences, though gathered around that 
sacred casket death might come to them from the common foe. 

So to-day, seizing the casket that contains the principles of the 
Democratic party, surrendered by enemies in a crisis in the history of 
our commonwealth, we meet, and, taking that casket which contains 
the tables of the law, we throw it into the thick of the fray and say to 
our patriotic country, "Follow, though the flower of the Union shall die 
in the attempt to win victory." [Applause.] 

I was unexpectedly called upon to deliver a message from the far 
land in which I live. I have delivered it. Let me add only, and then 
cease, that I bring to you words of cheer from that golden State whose 
mountains look out upon the peaceful Pacific. We come to assure you 
that there the fires of the honor-bright Democracy are burning on every 
mountain peak and lighting the welkin on every plain. [Applause.] 
My colleagues bring to you a message of cheer and of hope, and when 
the battle shall be over and the lists made out, it will be seen that Cali- 
fornia and her younger sisters, Oregon and Washington, have abided by 
the faith, and if they have not finally extinguished and vanquished one 
daughter of the Horse Leech, we have left her without a sister. [Great 
applause, waving of handkerchiefs and cheers for Irish.] 

ADJOURNED UNTIL TO-MORROW. 

F. W. Lehman, of Missouri: Mr. Chairman, I move that 
we adjourn until 11 o'clock to-morrow morning. 

The Chairman: The gentleman from Missouri now 
moves that the Convention adjourn until 11 o'clock to-morrow 
morning. All in favor of the motion say "Aye;" contrary 
"No." The motion is carried and the convention is adjourned 
until to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock. 



40 



SECOKD DAY.— Third Session. 

Tomlinson Hall, 
Thursday, September 3, 1896. 

11:00 O'CLOCK A. M. 

The Convention met pursuant to adjournment. 

The Chairman (at 11:35 a. m.): Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention, the Chair desires to announce that the time of open- 
ing the Convention is delayed for a few moments to ascertain 
whether or not the Committee on Resolutions is ready to re- 
port. The Chair is informed that that committee will report 
shortly. I beg you, therefore, to have patience for a few 
moments to see whether or not that committee will bring in 
its report. 

[Cries of " Breckenridge," " Breckenridge," " Brecken- 
ridge."] 

The Chairman: The Chair recognizee Hon. W. C. P. 
Breckenridge, of Kentucky. 

Mr. Breckenridge, of Kentucky: 

Mr. Chairman and my countrymen from every section of the im- 
perial Republic, I congratulate you upon this Convention. We are pass- 
ing through a crucial period. In the eloquent speeches that were made 
last night reference was made by that eloquent, scholarly orator from 
New Jersey [applause] (Mr. Lewis) concerning the action of the present 
President of the United States about the Chicago strike. We hardly 
knew what was the value of that action during those days. The great 
loss of property, the violation of law, the pathetic struggles of the un- 
employed laborers, were the things which met our eyes, but under- 
neath them there was a great development of our institutions. 

The war showed that we had the most warlike machinery of gov- 
ernment that the world had ever seen. In the midst of profound peace 
a pastoral people, inhabiting thirty States, suddenly found themselves 
confronted with that terrific problem. Without an organized govern- 
ment, with all its executive, judicial and legislative functions unim- 
paired, the governments of eleven States, by the mere power of those 
complex but subtle and powerful institutions which our fathers had 
formed, put into the field an army larger than their entire adult popu- 
lation, and history will tell of the glorious struggle that that army 
under that government performed during those four years; and at the 



41 

same time the twenty States of the North, nearly bankrupt, with their 
ships scattered and scarcely with an army, instantly organized the 
greatest army the world ever saw [applause] ; the courts of justice re- 
mained open, in the main the private rights of citizens were protected, 
and out of those four years marched a Republic the most warlike 
known, with the most warlike machinery of government the world has 
ever seen. [Applause.] 

As it had withstood the trials of that great war, it withstood the 
greater trials of the reconstruction period. [Applause.] Many things 
happened of which we may be ashamed, but out of it came a united 
Republic, without change of government, with all her institutions un- 
impaired, and with a prospect before us that was as boundless as the 
horizon of human hope and human liberty. [Applause.] 

Then came another strain. Thirty years nearly passed away. Was 
this machinery of government, that in time of war was so powerful, 
able in time of peace to preserve public order and compel obedience to 
the law? Could it, with its peculiar government and its duplex State 
and general government, could it, without war, without martial law, 
without the despot on horseback riding into the front, could it compel 
obedience to the law, preservation of public order, and demonstrate to 
the world that of all government liberty is indeed the strongest? [Ap- 
plause.] It was done in such a way that every philosophic thinker now 
knows that the American government, in war the most warlike, is in 
peace the most powerful that the world has ever seen. [Applause.] 

THE CRUCIAL TEST. 

Now, we come to the crucial test of universal suffrage. Can the 
ballot-box sustain law and order when its decrees are in the hands of 
an executive made regnant? Are people fit to be trusted with the sov- 
ereignty of universal suffrage? We are here to-day, in the name of 
the true Democracy, the conservative, radical Democracy, that con- 
structs and never destructs [applause], to say yes to those propositions. 

And no party name, no party masquerading in our honored name 
and with our flag, can take from the ballot-box the voice of law or hold 
liberty and keep anarchy under foot. It is not even a national ques- 
tion, as great as this imperial Republic is. It is an international and a 
world-wide question. The world has yearned and mankind has prayed 
for a government that secured for him liberty and peace and gave unto 
him his rights, and yet gave them to him in the midst of order. The 
world has tried the experiment of three-fourths democracies like 
Athens, of all forms of despotism the noblest race of all time in the 
noblest era of all the world's history. It is trying the noblest experi- 
ment of human genius and human hope in our continent. We are, in 
the midst of all the world the cynosure of all eyes, now trying to work 
out at the ballot-box the great problem if we indeed form a government 
that give unto us peace, liberty, law and order. 

My fellow-Democrats, we are radical rather than conservative. We 
are the men who have changed the whole political history of the world. 



42 



We have taken this fringe of the Atlantic ocean and in less than one 
hundred and thirty years we have gone to the Pacific slope. We are 
colonists, not adventurers. We are what Bacon said, "The noblest of 
artificers, the builders of empires." We have builded them upon foun- 
dations that we believe to be absolutely stable as the granite rocks upon 
which God has put the great ranges of mountains. 

And has it come that in the end of the nineteenth century we- are to 
re-discuss all the problems of the last twenty-five centuries? Are we 
to have agrarianism, are we to have the vague vagaries of Rienzi and 
all the follies of Jack Cade to be again presented for disputation and 
settlement at the bar of American public opinion? [Applause.] Shall 
the half-educated, blest with the gift of eloquent speech, reopen all the 
settled problems that statesmanship has put behind it? [Applause.] 

DISSENSION AND DISCORD. 

The convention at Chicago and the convention at St. Louis, like 
two unequal parts of one story, of which the introduction is that at 
Chicago and the story and the conclusion is that at St. Louis, is a story 
of distraction and dissatisfaction. It is the evangel of hate and of dis- 
cord; it is an appeal to every dissatisfied citizen, and he who stands 
upon those two platforms, honestly saying he stands upon one and 
shirking and dodging the acknowledgment that he believes in the other, 
is to-day, and has been since his nomination, preaching only dissatis- 
faction, dissension and discord. 

Is it true that in America there are divisions which might be called 
divisions of classes and masses? Are we not all American citizens, 
with equal hopes and aspirations? [Applause.] Is it true that we have 
the beginning of caste, and that we have to organize a Democratic 
party to wipe out those caste regulations? Is it not true that every 
boy in America has a fair living chance for everything that life can 
give when he is frugal, honest, brave and wise? [Applause.] The 
Democratic party, on the contrary, has been always the preacher of 
the gospel of fraternity. Our great founder — nay, nay, he was not our 
founder, our great apostle, Thomas Jefferson — for we were founded 
whenever the first man felt within his heart that he was free and could 
look up into the face of God and into the depths of His intellect and 
weigh what God told him, and decide as a free agent what he would 
accept or reject. Wherever there is a free man there is a Democratic 
party. [Applause.] 

Our great apostle preached the gospel of universal fraternity, be- 
cause upon it was based the hope of universal liberty upon which was 
founded the hope of universal peace. Has it come that in his name, 
under the pretense of preaching his doctrine, the Democratic party 
shall preach the doctrine of hate and of discord and of dissension? 

If everything in that platform sounded like Democracy, if every- 
thing in it had the vernacular of Democracy, I would denounce it, be- 
cause its result is universal dissatisfaction and discord. [Applause.] 
It is destructive in every part of it. We have an executive. It con- 



43 



demns him for being an executive. [Applause.] We have the law, to 
"be obeyed, and it condemns the law because the officer of the law 
caused it to be obeyed. 

We have the judiciary, and because it is independent, and even if it 
be erroneous — for I, for one, immodest as it may seem with my knowl- 
edge as a lawyer, deem erroneous the last decision of that court on one 
of the questions — but because we disagree with it, or rather because 
they disagree with it, they determine to change it in such a way that 
that great tribunal — and when it is lost, all other tribunals will be lost 
with it — that that great tribunal shall be subservient to party caucuses, 
to be a tool of party wishes. [Applause.] You of the North know not 
the value of an upright judiciary. You don't know what it is to have 
no hope but an upright court. You don't know what it is to live in the 
midst of a silent law when there is nothing left but the will of a com- 
mander or the mandate of a court. You don't know what a shadow of 
a great rock to an oppressed people is an upright and able and inde- 
pendent judiciary. [Applause.] . We of the South uphold that judiciary 
because in it we found that there was a hope of the reconquest of all 
that was lost to which we were entitled, and we put our hope for all the 
future of an oppressed minority in the independence and courage of an 
Tipright judiciary. [Applause.] 

With you it is a sentiment. With us it is a living reality, burned 
into our hearts by the disasters of the past, and, standing in the midst 
of a reunited Democracy, appealing to it from every part of America, 
in the name of the entire South I plead for that last refuge of innocence 
and an oppressed minority, an upright judiciary, to be left sacred from 
the polluting touch of party and of corruption. [Applause.] 

THE MONEY QUESTION. 

It is destructive in its assault upon our monetary system. It is not 
that it is for free silver. That is a mere disguise. If free silver would 
make silver go up to a par with gold, the leaders of that movement 
would be the most disappointed lot of men the world ever saw. [Ap- 
plause.] 

I do not question any single man's honesty of purpose. I do not make 
any personal assault upon anyone, but the power behind the free silver 
movement is the power for more money and cheaper money and irre- 
deemable money. [Applause.] The Chicago platform bears the same 
relation to what those gentlemen believe that the rainbow of Niagara 
Palls does to the clear, bright rays of a noonday sun. It is their desire 
to destroy our present monetary system, to draw from under it the 
foundation of gold. I hear of gold being the money of the capitalist. It 
is not so. Gold is the burden-bearer of civilized industry [applause] ; 
it is the foundation, not the apex, of the temple that industry has 
raised with the hands of frugality and skill, and when they withdraw 
it everything tumbles, we know with what disastrous results, into the 
hole produced by that withdrawal. I, for one, cannot foresee what the 
result will be, any more than I could foresee what would be the result 



44 



of withdrawing the foundation from under the Rookery at Chicago. It 
might all tumble into that hole; it might tumble out into the street; I 
know the tumble will take place, and I do not intend living in the 
Rookery to have it tumble over our heads if I can help it. [Applause.] 
I do not intend to discuss the money question to-day before you. 
It has been discussed so ably by other gentlemen, in one aspect, with 
such great ability by my honored friend, Governor Flower, yesterday 
afternoon; in other aspects by others. I desire to add but one thought 
to the great argument he made about the appreciation of gold. We had 
a wondrous demonstration of how cheap gold is. The American gov- 
ernment came before the American people and offered to buy one hun- 
dred millions of gold. Now, interest is the exact test of the value of 
money, if there be no element of uncertainty. If there be an element of 
uncertainty, interest goes up, so as to cover the risk, and the universal 
test of the value of gold is probably the value of the English consol. 
That has no element of uncertainty about it. But even in America,, 
with this financial panic, with this shadow of free silver, with this 
doubt of repudiation, the American government came and tendered the 
purchase of one hundred millions of gold at 4 per cent., and the Amer- 
ican people offered to sell five hundred and fifty millions of gold at less 
than Sy 2 per cent. [Applause.] 

SOME IMPROBABILITIES. 

It is utterly impossible to doubt that the cheapest money, in the 
sense of its willingness to be sold at low prices, that the world ever saw 
is the gold of to-day. But it will not sell itself to those who openly 
proclaim that it will not be paid back to the honest men who parted, 
with it. It will not sell itself at any price to those. who offer to buy it 
and who hereafter will return the purchase in depreciated and debased 
currency. [Applause.] Under those circumstances it will not come 
out of its hiding place; it will not take part in industrial enterprises 
until it is sure that the owner of it shall have returned to him that 
which he paid. 

If it were possible, my fellow-countrymen, that to-day a messenger 
boy of one of these great lightning corporations which send the news 
to all the world could bring in a dispatch from an absolutely certain 
source that on to-morrow the silver question would be considered set- 
tled, that there would be no dispute over payments, that the American 
people had determined with absolute certainty to enter upon no devious 
or doubtful ways, that it intended to put on not a forced and dishonest 
construction of the words of the statute, but, according to the deliberate 
and understood terms of the contract, to carry it out and every contract 
made, what would occur? Your industrial enterprises would be re- 
newed, your wheels of industry would begin to revolve, your bankers 
would put out money, labor would be employed, wages would be paid, 
and the country's hearthstones would resound in choral songs to that 
power that restored American commerce and industry, and confidence 
in common honesty. [Applause.] 



45 



SOME OF THE RESULTS. 

Think of it for a moment — just for a moment! What would be the 
result? We hear of calamities, and there are many of them. We have 
predicted it — we who did not go into the bargain at Chicago by which 
the word "only" was stricken out of our tariff plank; but we stand upon 
the old Democratic doctrine, and we have a tariff for revenue only. We 
have been predicting this. We said the time would come when dissatis- 
faction and the fear born of the grievances of American labor, by which 
some were made rich and some poor, would cause dissatisfaction and 
harm and fill the country with distrust and distress. What would be 
the result of that, though? If for one single hour we were absolutely 
certain that this question was settled and that the gold standard was 
beyond the danger of attack, no pen of poet, no brush of painter, no 
rhetoric of orator could paint the renewed confidence that America 
would have. Like a giant breaking loose from the chains which had 
bound him, America would rise again in her might. Her ships would 
once more seek the seas, her flags would be seen everywhere. The labor 
of seven months, by which we do all that is necessary for twelve, would 
go for twelve months, and twelve months' wages would be paid to the 
laborer, and everywhere we would begin to be the creditor nation, in- 
stead of the debtor nation of the world. Our debts would not come 
from abroad to worry and annoy us because of lost confidence in our 
honesty. Our paper would be like the English pound sterling, the rep- 
resentative of absolute honesty. Like an English pound sterling, it 
would meet every promise issued anywhere by our nation, and we would 
be once more the leader of the procession of enormous inventions for 
the good of the human laborer, and, as at the head of the column of 
freedom, we would be at the head of the column of artisans. This is 
what it would mean. This is what we are here to-day to do. 

WHAT SILVERITES DID. 

It is sometimes urged that you are trying to elect McKinley. My 
friends, the silver Democrats took that job out of our hands since 1894. 
[Applause.] We elected a Democratic President on two great Demo- 
cratic economic principles of freer trade and sound money in 1892, and 
our free silver friends once began to destroy the Democratic party. 
I saw in the paper, the other day, that they said they had the scalps of 
their enemies hanging at their belts. They are mistaken. They have 
the scalps of their friends hanging at their belts. [Applause.] They 
rejected sound money, and all New England turned out every Demo- 
cratic Congressman who had been elected there after thirty years of 
dispute, making the Democratic party the advocate of honest trade and 
honest money. They disregarded the admonitions of Cleveland, and a 
Republican Governor reigns in New York, where we used to have a 
Democratic Governor. They would not believe that sound money was 
good doctrine, and Maryland sends a Republican Senator to be the col- 
league of Arthur P. Gorman, and a Republican Governor is in the White 



46 



House at Annapolis. They rejected the teachings of that loveliest of 
all our American statesmen, the able and scholarly William L. Wilson,, 
and West Virginia sent Stephen Elkins to the Senate of the United 
States; and they defeated the Democratic party in Ohio, so that a Re- 
publican Senator takes the place of a long succession of Democratic 
Senators in that State, headed by Thurman, Pendleton and others, mak- 
ing so glorious a record. They disavowed the teachings of that ex- 
traordinarily lucid and able Carlisle, and we have a Republican Gov- 
ernor in the State of Kentucky. They pardoned the anarchists in the 
great State of Illinois, and every Democratic Congressman walked the 
plank at the next election. The magnificent and imperial State of the 
Mississippi valley, that great and lusty young leader of the new Empire 
of the West, her honor was trifled with, and Missouri went over to the 
Republican ranks. There has not been the ghost of a chance to elect a 
Democratic President since 1894, because of the free silver men, and, 
therefore, when they charge us that we are trying to elect McKinley, we 
respectfully suggest that they have done that job for us far more skill- 
fully than we ever could do it. [Applause.] What we have refused to 
do, what we do intend to refuse to do, is to permit the election of that 
Chicago ticket upon the pretense that it is a Democratic ticket. 

I voted for Horace Greeley, and I am not ashamed of it. It was not 
a very palatable dose, but the memory of it has become modified in 
twenty-four years of probation. But I did not vote for him as a Demo- 
cratic candidate, nor did I pretend that he stood upon a Democratic- 
platform, and I shall not vote for a Populistic candidate on a Populistic 
platform under pretense that it is Democratic. [Applause.] 

That Democratic convention was our agent. We gave it instruc- 
tions; the Democratic party was its principle. If it had obeyed its- 
instructions it was our duty to ratify. None would have done it more 
cheerfully than this body. You are men who stand by your contracts, 
and if your agents had kept your faith and obeyed your instructions, 
even to your own hurt, you would have been like the man who is spoken 
of in the Bible, "Him who sweareth to his own hurt and repenteth not;" 
but when it disobeyed our instructions its action was unauthorized, 
and we are not bound by it. 

It is the duty of a Democratic convention to apply Democratic prin- 
ciples to the solution of the pending issues before the American people. 
Issues change; one time it may be the tariff, another time sound money, 
another time the autonomy of the States, another time the public lands, 
another time the veto power. I care not what it is — the issue changes; 
the principle to be applied never changes, except in the mode and the 
manner of its application. That agent of ours undertook, in our name, 
by virtue of a commission bearing our seal, to apply un-Democratic 
principles in an un-Democratic solution of those policies, and we dis- 
avow the unauthorized act of that disobedient and revolutionary agent. 
[Applause.] That is the whole question to-day. 

It is not our ticket. I have nothing to say against the young man 
who is now enlightening the people about the policies that ought to 
control the settlement of financial questions. He is not our nominee. 



47 



I have read his speeches with great care. Has anyone gathered from 
those speeches anything except that sad lesson that wealth goes un- 
equally with men? That to some come prosperous days, and to some 
come adversity; that in some homes is plenty, and in some other homes 
want, and that, as a corrolary from that, that those to whom life has 
been hard ought to unite to destroy that which has been accumulated 
by those to whom life has been prosperous? Is there any other lesson 
in all these speeches? Stripped of its' verbiage, reduced to plain En- 
glish, isn't it, 'Here is a great country, the rich abounding in riches, 
prosperous in many respects; money has been accumulated; the homes 
upon the Hudson are handsome; the buildings upon the streets of Cleve- 
land are magnificent; the syndicates control great sums; your labor 
has no.t given you its true and just share of profits. There is the ballot- 
box; there the ballo*; there the weapon; you the soldier?" 

WHAT IS THE LESSON? 

What is the lesson? What is the lesson taught by this? Is it to be 
honest, to be frugal, to be patient? Is it a statesmanlike admonition? 
Study the question. Is it "Use the ballot-box as the weapon to equalize 
that which life hath made unequal"? [Applause.] I protest that that 
isn't Democracy; that is un-Democracy. Our Democracy is the Democ- 
racy of the Declaration of Independence. It is the Democracy of the 
Constitutions of the United States. It is the Democracy of the Presi- 
dents that have gone before, and of the one who is still with us. The 
government shall not support the people; the people must support the 
government. [Applause.] Our Democracy, based upon the school- 
house; our Democracy, based upon the true use of the ballot — the ballot 
not as an engine of destruction, not as an agent of hate, not as an evi- 
dence of distinction of classes, not as a weapon of hostility, but as the 
means by which, through peaceful remedies, wrongs are righted. It 
takes the place of the bayonet; it takes the place of force; it deals not 
in strikes, it deals not in anarchy, in bombs, inciting organizations of 
men to commit violence. But the ballot is the means. It is American. 
It is an attribute of liberty, not to make discord, but to bring about 
harmonjr; not to produce dissension, but to produce that equalization of 
law before which all men stand equal under a government that has the 
three departments of an executive that shall make the law regnant, 
under a judiciary that shall be independent to declare it, under a legis- 
lature that shall be impartial, true, in our will power; the executive 
power to compel the law to be obeyed, just in our law-declaring power, 
an independent judiciary, impartial in our law-making power — and that 
is Democracy. And this masquerade in latter days of hate is not 
Democracy, and does not appeal to American Democrats. [Applause.] 

THE DUTY OF THE HOUR. 

Now, my Democratic friends, what are we going to do here to-day? 
Nominate a ticket, of course. There is not anyone among us that ever 
came here with any idea of shooting in the air and going through the 
dress-parade of formulating truths except by the concrete object lesson 



48 



of two good men standing upon a good platform [applause]— men who 
are our exemplars. I care not particularly who they are, whether it be 
some gentleman who, after a long life in the service of his country in 
peace and war, would like to take off the armor which we would put 
upon him to make him leader. [Applause and cries of "Palmer!" 
"Palmer!"] I can follow cheerfully, enthusiastically, in the lead of tha*- 
most excellently self-controlled gentleman in his temper who com- 
manded the "iron brigade" in the war [applause] and put the iron ol 
law and order against the debased currency that shall ruin commerce 
on the other side. I am willing, if it need be, and do it cheerfully, to 
put at the head of the ticket that farmer-statesman whom I served with 
in Congress, who presided as your Temporary Chairman yesterday, the 
fair Flower of New York. [Applause.] 

I do not want the questions before us obscured by any other ques- 
tions. Do not let us make any nomination that shall obscure the ques- 
tions. Do not let us open any door to our enemies to raise 
new issues upon us. "We are the Democratic party who entered into no 
bargain that Teller and Sherman made and repudiated. [Applause.] 
Who doubts that that bargain with Teller and Sherman, by which they 
gave the Sherman bill to the mine-owner of the West and the McKinley 
tariff to the manufacturers of the East, was made over again by the 
Senators now in Congress calling themselves Democratic and the Repub- 
lican free-silver Senators, by which they gave free silver at St. Louis 
and Chicago and struck out "only" from our tariff plank? [Applause.] 

AN HONEST DOLLAR. 

We stand to-day for tariff for revenue only. [Applause.] We are 
of that Democratic party which knows that the markets of America 
are not sufficient for the sweat of America, and want to open every 
market in the world, that our laborers may sell their products wherever 
they please in all the world, and we want those laborers, when they sell 
their products, to get dollars for them that are good in any market 
where they want to buy. [Applause.] And that the American dollar; — 
no bastard dollar at 53 cents on the hundred, but a dollar so good that 
the American laborer, taking it in his hand as the coined sweat of his 
hot day's labor, can buy anywhere in the world with that dollar, with- 
out discount, what his home people need for it [applause] — and that is 
sound money. [Applause.] And when this Convention adjourns and 
we return home, we will win no elections, no States, perhaps, not a 
single one, probably, will vote for our ticket. 

There is in every transaction the element of transitoriness and of 
permanence. He who sees the battlefield and the victor forgets the 
questions that were involved in it, and the scaffold of the victim may be 
the crown that shall hereafter mark the victor. We will be defeated at 
the polls, but we will save — what? The honor of America [applause], 
the good name of our people and the Democratic party from ruin. [Ap- 
plause.] 



k 



49 



COLONEL BRECKENRIDGE' S CONCLUSION. 

I had an opportunity on a late occasion to state one object of this 
organization. May I repeat it? It is one that touches us possibly not 
so much in principle as in affection. Many thousands of these men are 
our brethren — God bless them! We have nothing to say of them but 
God speed you in all the affairs of life, even if you go wrong now, and, 
therefore, we want to do something that will show our affection for 
them, and we build anew this Democratic home, we repair its broken 
windows, we put new hinges upon its creaky doors, we make comfort- 
able its numerous rooms, and after November, when these Democratic 
brethren of ours, led astray by the ignis fatuus of that Populistic light, 
feel that they are in defeat and sorrow, we will light the electric light 
of modern civilization, throw open the shutters and the doors, light the 
fire, so that they may see the rays of the home to which we will invite 
them at a no long distance, and we will beg them to come and sit by the 
fireside with us. 

We will not tell them of what we have gone through, except, prob- 
ably, to call the servant and say, "John, take my brother's boots," since 
evidently he has been through the mud [laughter and applause], and 
as he looks a little weary, we may turn around and say to somebody, 
"It is not the season of the year when the aroma of mint comes gently 
from the side of the rivulet, but, foreseeing this, we have put away 
in the closet a little," and, "John, bring out the mint and sugar and set 
out the old Bourbon, the Democracy that is pure and unmixed, beside 
our brother, and let him feel at home." [Applause.] We will not talk 
of lives misspent; we will not speak of hopes ruined; we will never men- 
tion Chicago once, or, if we do, we will do it by some soft paraphrase 
like "The City of the Porkpackers," or something of that sort, merely 
to keep in his mind that he has gotten home. 

And then, when the night is far spent, and we take up in the old- 
fashioned way the little candle in the little candlestick, and start home, 
as we go up the steps to the home of the sleeper, the chamber where 
gratitude and affection bring together again the brothers that have 
been estranged, and when we get into the room and shut the door, we 
will give our hand to him, without a word, except to say to him: 
"Brother, the past has been bitter; let it be over; let the morrow be a 
day when we shall rival each other in our endeavors for a common 
country, for our beloved party, for the liberty that was our fathers and 
that we want to give our children — a liberty based upon order, making 
regnant the law, with just courts for you and me; and when we talk 
over this hereafter, it shall not be that one was wrong and one was 
right, but that both have finally reached through different pathways 
that common road that leads to the glory, to the prosperity and the 
happiness of a common people through a triumphant Democracy." 
[Great applause.] 



50 



SOME RESOLUTIONS. 

Mr. Griffin, of New York: Mr. President, I have a 
resolution which I desire to submit. 

The Chairman: Under the rules the resolution goes to 
the Committee on Resolutions without being read. The 
gentleman may state the nature of the resolution. 

Mr. Griffin: It is a resolution relating to the coinage 
question. 

Mr. Chairman: It will go to the Committee on Platform 
under the rule. 

G. W. Ochs, of Tennessee: Mr. President, I desire to 
ask unanimous consent to offer a resolution and ask that it 
be referred to the Committee on Platform. It was for Grover 
Cleveland to wipe out sectional lines and recognize the South 
as an integral part of the Union; it remained for the Chicago 
convention to rekindle the fires of sectional hate through 
the platform and speeches made there; and it remained for 
an honest, patriotic son of the Bay State, by words of burn- 
ing eloquence, to bring about a reunited country. As a rep- 
resentative of the State of Tennessee, and speaking for the 
entire delegation, we wish to pay a tribute to that son of the 
Bay State whom we all mourn so deeply. I, therefore, 
speaking for the entire Tennessee delegation, desire to offer 
the following resolution. 

The Chairman: The gentleman from Tennessee asks 
unanimous consent to offer a resolution. Is there objection? 
The Chair hears none and the gentleman from Tennessee 
may proceed. 

G. W. Ochs, of Tennessee: Mr. Chairman, the resolu- 
tions I desire to offer are as follows: 

Whereas, In the death of Hon. William E. Russell, of Massachu- 
setts, the Democratic party lost one of its most brilliant statesmen, the 
cause of honest money suffered an irreparable loss, the true patriots of 
America were bereft of one of their purest and most courageous repre- 
sentatives, and the nation mourns his death as a personal loss to all 
lovers of good government and pure citizenship; therefore, 



51 



Be it resolved, That the National Democratic Convention express 
its profound grief at his untimely taking offi; be it further 

Resolved, That this great loss to our nation and our party be ex- 
pressed by a rising vote. 

Be it further resolved, That copies of this resolution be transmit- 
ted to the family of the deceased by the Secretary of the Convention. 

Mr. Ochs: I ask a unanimous consent for the passage of 
these resolutions. 

The Chairman: The gentleman from Tennessee asks 
the unanimous consent for the passage of the resolutions 
read. Is there objection ? 

Mr. Falkner, of Alabama: Mr. President, I move that 
the vote on resolution be taken by a rising vote. 

The Chairman: The resolution itself provides for a ris- 
ing vote. All in favor of the passage of the resolution will 
please rise ; be seated. Those opposed rise ; there are 
none opposed. The resolutions are adopted. 

MR EVERETT RESPONDS. 

Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts: Mr. President, the del- 
egation of Massachusetts asks that Dr. William Everett be 
permitted to take the stand and accept from the Convention 
the resolution just offered. 

The Chairman: Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts, will come 
forward. 

Mr. Everett: 

Mr. Chairman: There are occasions on which the State of Massa- 
chusetts is ready to speak, and to speak with all the force and all the 
clearness she may, in response to any sentiment coming from the 
South, or from any other section of the country, which expresses her 
feelings. But on this occasion, Mr. Chairman, when, by our sister 
State, always our sister State, of Tennessee, this tribute is paid to the 
man that we have loved and lost, the delegates of Massachusetts do 
accept it with the deepest gratitude, and with the most profound appre- 
ciation of the feelings of this Convention; but they prefer — for I am 
speaking for them — having accepted it, to say no more, but to go home, 
with their hearts too full for utterance, in gratitude at the feeling mani- 
fested on this occasion by the voice of Tennessee for the son three 
times elected the Democratic Governor of Massachusetts, and, whether 



52 



he was elected or defeated, always admired, honored and beloved from 
the hills of Berkshire to the sound of Cape Cod, whom, if he had lived 
longer, would have been known, loved and honored and set on high 
in the whole country as he was in his State. 

The Chairman: The Secretary wishes to make some 
announcements. 

The Secretary : The full list of the National Committee 
has not been furnished to the Secretary. Some States have 
not sent in any names, and those that have not done so will 
please do so immediately. There will be a meeting of the 
members of the new National Committee upon the adjourn- 
ment for the first recess at Room 38 of the Grand Hotel. 

A VOICE FROM KENTUCKY. 

Mr. Savage, of Kentucky: I have been requested to 
read the following telegram from the junior Senator from 
Kentucky : 

"To the Hon. George M. Davie, Kentucky delegation: Give us an 
unequivocal Democratic platform and an old-time Democratic ticket, 
and all will be well. WILLIAM LINDSAY." 

Mr. Savage: With such influential men as Judge Lind- 
say, William C. P. Breckenridge, Rodney Haggard and the 
grand old man that is to be the Vice-President nominated by 
this Convention, there is no more show of Bryan carrying 
Kentucky than there is of the Blessed Master visiting 
Chicago. [Great laughter.] 

mr. warner's speech. 

Ex- Congressman John DeWitt Warner, of New York, 
who was called to the stand, said: 

Mr. Chairman, Fellow-Democrats, Ladies as well as Gentlemen — 
Strange as it may seem, sir, I have found suddenly come upon me one 
consolation for being called upon to face an audience which has been 
so lately instructed and delighted by the orators and statesmen who 
have addressed you during the last few days, for it is a fact that for the 
time being all fears concerning the hereafter have been banished from 
iny mind. I trust I may be pardoned if, in answer to the State which 
has done me so much honor, I say little more than enough to serve as 
the answer as to why the State of New York and every son of New York 



53 



expects to go into this campaign every time he is called upon. We are 
in this battle in behalf at once of Democracy and honesty, because we 
believe that Democracy and honesty are one and inseparable. As we 
have been taught Democracy, it means that on the one hand law shall 
protect every citizen in making such contract as he of his own free will 
chooses, and then that Democracy shall compel every citizen to stand 
by the contract that he thus has made. [Applause.] As we look at it, 
sir, when a man buys a coat for $10, that man sells $10 for a coat. And 
just as Democracy defends the right of every man to buy such a coat as 
he pleases, and to buy it where he pleases, so it defends the right of 
every Democrat, when he has bargained for dollars, to bargain for such 
dollars as he pleases, and, having bargained for them, to receive the 
dollars for which he has bargained. And, sir, however it may be with 
men of more astute intellects than ours, we have never been able to 
understand why, if it is un-Democratic to make a man buy a coat that 
he does not want, it is Democratic to make him contract for dollars 
that he does not prefer. We have never been able to understand why, 
if it is honest to give him the right to insist upon the coat that he has 
bought, it is otherwise than dishonest to permit to be forced upon him 
the dollars for which he has not contracted. 

Again, sir, we believe that government should not interfere, except 
to carry out the will of the people, and we have been looking carefully 
into this matter to see who, if anybody, wished intervention in behalf 
of free coinage, to change the monetary system of the country. For 
one, sir, I believe that gold is the best standard. But I believe if this 
country wanted a standard of pig tin it should have it, and no one 
should stand in its way; but inquire as we have done, we have found 
not one man throughout the United States who for a moment claims 
that he wants silver who could not get it. We have found not a man in 
all the land who for a moment claims that he has had gold forced upon 
him when he did not want *it. We have heard nobody suggest that he 
was not allowed to make a contract payable in silver if he and the one 
with whom he made it agreed upon it, and we have not heard of any 
man, Democrat, Republican or Populist, who has insisted upon making 
any such contract as that. 

DO NOT WANT SILVER. 

In other words, we find that the free silver legislation is not asked 
by those who want silver. They can have all they want without legisla- 
tion. It is not asked by those who do not want gold. There is nobody who 
claims to be oppressed. It is asked alone by the few among us who, 
having contracts payable in gold, wish the aid of law to foist upon 
somebody else the silver that they want to get rid of. [Applause.] It 
is bad enough, sir, to wish to compel your fellow-citizens into a course 
of policy upon which they do not agree in order to carry out a plan in 
which many are disinterestedly interested; but when it comes to the 
point of passing legislation in order to foist upon others what you do 
not want yourselves in order to break contracts which have been made 



54 



— that is what the Democracy of New York have never been able to 
agree to. [Applause.] The point with us is, How is this affecting the 
laboring men of the country, and we have looked with great interest 
for an explanation as to how it is going to help them. 

There are some things, sir, that they have learned by experience, 
and this is one: The more the appreciation of the currency in which 
their wages are paid, the greater the amount of the comforts of life they 
can purchase with those wages. They appreciate entirely that the 
cheaper are the necessaries of life the better it is for the workingmen, 
who have to purchase them with the wages they receive. They have 
listened carefully to our friends from the West in their suggestion to 
the farmers that free silver will make meat and bread high and enable 
the farmers to hire their labor cheaper. They do not propose for one 
moment to stand in the way of anything that is to benefit the farmer, 
but before they join with him in this crusade, or before, rather, they 
join with the men that assume to speak for him, they want to know 
how it is that it will benefit them to make higher the meat and bread, 
the food and the raiment they have to buy, and at the same time split 
in two the wages which are to be paid to them. 

WANT BRYAN TO BE HONEST. 

They want Mr. Bryan to be honest with them. It may be that 
wages are too high in this country. "We do not think they are. But if 
they are, and that fact is fairly stated, we are willing to go into a dis- 
cussion of that question. What we do object to is that those who are 
attempting to bring about the welfare of others, if it be welfare, at our 
expense, ask to enlist us in the fight upon the pretense that we are 
helping ourselves and not them. [Applause.] 

But, one word more, sir. We have met throughout the State of 
New York the suggestion that we were not "regular." That, sir, de- 
pends upon what is "regular." We have had a sort of an idea that 
regularity depended upon loyalty to the principles of the party and 
obedience to the commission which that party had given to its repre- 
sentatives. [Applause.] And we, sir, have not become convinced that, 
being the crew of the grand old ship Democracy, we have ceased to be 
"regular" because pirates have temporarily taken possession of her 
deck and stolen our flag to float their nefarious purposes. [Applause.] 
We are pretty stout partisans in New York, sir, but we have not yet got 
to the point where we can for one moment believe that partisan loyalty 
is such a principle that in following the vagaries of a party without 
principle it compels the loyal partisan to be a weather prophet to find 
out where he is going and a weather cock to keep track of the gales 
that blow in the party. [Applause.] 

For those who have forged the name of Democracy in order to be- 
tray its principles we have, sir, nothing but defiance, so long as they 
are engaged in that work, but forgiveness and reconciliation whenever 
they are willing to come back and help undo the wrong they have done. 



55 



, FIGHTING ON BOTH SIDES. 

One word more, sir, as to our object here. There are citizens in 
New York, more of them than I wish there were, many of them of those 
who have been but lately attracted to Democracy by what they conceive 
to be their devotion to the weal of our country, who have resolved to 
vote for Mr. McKinley; but they are not in our delegation, sir, and 
they are not among the masses whom that delegation represents. We 
are equally opposed to the legitimate Republicanism that is found in the 
McKinley camp and the bastard Republicanism that has been foisted 
into the Democratic house. We have formed a square, and we are 
fighting on both sides — fighting Bryanism on the one hand, and Mc- 
Kinleyism on the other, and we propose to carry on the double fight un- 
til there is only one enemy — and we don't care which it is — in order 
that we may be able, as a united Democracy, to devote ourselves to 
cleaning out the other. 

There is nothing, sir, more present in our hearts than deep regret 
if any candidate who has ever borne the name of Democrat goes down 
in this fight by reason of our weapons. There is nothing but the most 
poignant regret if anyone who still bears the name of Republican suc- 
ceeds upon the field on account of the action to which we have been 
obliged to turn; but, sir, when we get through with this campaign, it is 
our pledge that, whatever be its result, there shall still be a Democracy 
in New York which shall uphold the banner, about which the Demo- 
crats of New York can rally, and which in New York and for all time 
to come shall maintain the principles of the Democratic party and bear 
the mark of the Democratic covenant and keep it from the Philistines, 
from whatever direction they may come. [Applause.] 

The Chairman: The Committee on Resolutions is not 
ready to report at this time. The Chair is informed that 
they will shortly, but, at what precise time, it is unable to 
state. 

A Delegate from Missouri: I move that this Convention 
take a recess until 2:30 p. m. [Cries of " IsTo."] 

MR. LEHMAN'S SPEECH. 

The Chairman : The motion is not seconded. The Chair 
recognizes Mr. Lehman. 

Mr. Lehman : 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention — The Democratic 
faith is simple and it is single. It may be expressed in one article, 
and that is, equal opportunity for all and special aid to none. The ap- 
plications of that principle are as various and as manifold as the needs 



56 



and the emergencies of government. We are met here because we wish 
to protect the good faith of the Democratic party of the United States 
in the applications which it has proposed of that principle during the 
last twenty years, and upon every one of which the convention at Chi- 
cago put the stamp of fraud and of false pretense. We are here because 
we are not willing to meet with the people of this country and tell them 
that whatever we professed to them in the years gone by was a lie. 
[Applause.] 

In 1876, under the leadership of Samuel J. Tilden [cheers], apply- 
ing this Democratic principle to the civil service of this country, we de- 
clared that merit should be the sole test of appointment to office. 

We renewed that pledge in 1880, and again in 1884, and upon the 
faith of that we elected Grover Cleveland to the presidency of the United 
States [applause], he, on his part, accepting that as an honest expres- 
sion of Democratic purpose, undertook to give it force and effect in his 
administration of the government. And in 1888 his action was approved 
by the Democratic convention, and he was commended for having 
taught, not only by precept, but by example, the purest function of 
government. We caught inspiration from him in 1892 and declared 
that public office is a public trust. But now we have given to that 
principle a wider scope than ever before. Our so-called Democratic 
convention meets in 1896 and says that this system, to which we have 
pledged ourselves through twenty years, is a system of life tenure and 
of oppression of the poor and humble. Acquiescence in the will of the 
majority when constitutionally expressed in the form of law is the 
absolute condition of free government. No matter how genuine the 
grievance, and no matter how just the resentment which prompts to 
revolt and to resistance of authority, whenever we revolt and that re- 
sistance makes itself manifest, the government must maintain its au- 
thority by all the force of its people. 

THE ONLY WEAPON. 

Under a free government we cannot admit the brand or the bullet 

as weapons of redress. [Applause.] The only weapon that we can 

admit is that of the ballot, — 

"A weapon that comes down as still 
As snow-flakes fall upon the sod, 
But executes a freeman's will 

As lightning does the will of God." [Applause.] 

We have declared that the only just purpose of taxation is to min- 
ister to the needs of the government economically administered, and 
that whatever taxation goes beyond that in measure, and whatever tax- 
ation is applied to a different purpose, is unjust taxation; and that 
principle, to which we have been committed through the past twenty 
years as the most vital and essential to the welfare and prosperity of 
our. people, we relegate to the distant future by the action of the Chi- 
cago convention. We cease our protest against the favor which our 
legislation has shown in years gone by to the iron barons of the Alle- 
ghanies, and we now proffer a similar aid and a similar protection to 



57 



the silver barons of the Rockies. And why? Because we are told that 
the gold dollar, which is now the basis of our currency, is too good a 
dollar; it is too dear a dollar; it buys too much. 

On that score we stand, not simply as the representatives of a 
party — we stand here as the representatives of the homes of this coun- 
try, and we take our instruction not from party platforms, but from 
the practices of our housewives. [Applause.] When the good house- 
wife gets the dollar which is the expression of her husband's toil, she, 
as she goes out shopping, cheapens every article which she wishes to 
buy. She exhausts all the resources of her ingenuity to transmute and 
to translate into as much as possible of everything she wants to min- 
ister to the comfort, the welfare and the happiness of her family. 
[Applause.] And I prefer that practice of domestic economy — the in- 
stinctive wisdom of the women — to all the political economy that was 
ever preached by Bryan or by Bland. [Applause.] 

ALLIED WITH ENEMIES. 

We have been asked to form an alliance with those who have been 
heretofore and who are now strangers to our faith. It was current for 
a time in the political history of this country that the Sherman pur- 
chasing act of 1890 was passed as a matter of party expediency to re- 
lieve a Republican President from the embarrassment of signing a free 
silver bill, but only recently the truth has come out, and it now appears 
that the passage of that bill was made a condition by the representa- 
tives of the silver States of the passage of the McKinley act of 1890. 
[Applause.] These men who profess themselves now to be the especial 
friends of the plain people for the sake of enhancing the product of 
their mines — not the product of their toil, but something that God in 
His bounty hath stored away to be of equal benefit to all the people — I 
say these professing friends of the plain people, in order to enhance the 
price of the product of their mines, were willing and did consent to the 
enactment of a bill and impose an additional price upon everything 
that is used by man, from the slats in his cradle to the tacks in his 
coffin. [Laughter.] And they have parted company with their breth- 
ren of the Republican party because even that party found itself, when 
it came to meet the people, unable to maintain the bargain that it had 
made with them. 

Our silver friends have had much favor at the hands of this govern- 
ment. They have a representation in the Senate beyond that of any 
other section of the United States. The State of Nevada, with its 
30,000 people, is represented by two Senators. The county in which we 
hold this Convention would, upon a similar basis, be entitled to a 
baker's dozen, and if the whole United States were thus represented, 
you could not crowd the Senators into this hall, though you packed 
them like sardines. [Applause.] They have received in the price of 
their product, purchased directly by the United States, a sum more 
than $150,000,000 in excess of its market price to-day. If there is any 
power in legislation to establish a ratio between silver and gold, if there 
is power in the legislation of this country to fix immutably the value of 



58 



one thing in relation to another, then I insist that the great Mississippi 
valley, which has been neglected throughout the hundred years of our 
history, be given an opportunity, and that we have a law declaring a 
dollar in gold, and not of silver, to be the price of a bushel of wheat. 
[Applause.] 

IN SOLITARY ARRAY. 

We are asked what we expect to do. We stand out in solitary 
array. We are met by our old friends and associates with reproach; 
we are met by our ancient enemies with urgent invitation, and both 
tell us that, standing alone, we can do nothing, and that the logic of 
our position compels us to the one side or the other, if we would make 
our action effective. But we answer that success is never the duty of 
the individual. The duty of every man is to make himself right as his 
conscience points out the right to him [applause], and if he succeeds 
in that he can trust that God, in His own good time and His own good 
way, will crown his cause with victory." [Applause.] 

MR. BYNUM CALLED FOE. 

Thomas A. Moran, of Chicago : Mr. Chairman, there ia 
a gentlemen present in this Convention who has given great 
labor to make this movement successful. He is an eminent 
and respected citizen of Indiana, and the delegation from 
Illinois desires to move that he he invited now to address 
this Convention. I move that the Convention invite an 
address from the Hon. William D. Bynum, of Indiana. 

The Chairman: All in favor of the motion of the gen- 
tleman from Illinois will say "Aye;" those opposed "No." 
The motion is carried. The Chair recognizes Mr. Bynum, 
of Indiana. 

Mr. Bynum, of Indiana: 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention — I assure you that 
I am unable to command words to express the gratitude I feel at this 
reception. For more than four weeks I have earnestly labored to bring 
about this Convention. It has been a work of great anxiety, and there- 
fore of great labor, and when I saw my hopes realized, beyond my ex- 
pectations, I say to you that a reaction at once set in. When I entered 
the hall last evening for the first time, and witnessed the proceedings 
at the mass meeting, I was almost impressed with the conviction that 
it must be a dream and not a reality. And yet, my friends, it is not 
strange when we come to think of the situation of the Democratic party 



59 

to-day. Four years ago the Democratic party, assembled in Chicago, 
adopted a platform and placed our standard in the hands of a man 
who was never to capitulate for terms or to cease to wage battle 
until victory had been achieved. Under the leadership of Grover Cleve- 
land [cheers], in 1892, upon a Democratic platform, we achieved a vic- 
tory unparalleled in the history of politics. It is almost impossible to 
conceive that within the short space of four years, that same party 
would assemble in the same great city and condemn that administration 
which it had chosen for enforcing a policy which it had promulgated. 
With such a transition, it is not surprising that within the short space 
of one month a few gentlemen of convictions could bring together a 
full representation of that great party to protest against the treachery 
of that convention. [Applause,] I am unable to discuss issues upon 
this occasion; I am not prepared to do so, and even if I were, I am not 
in a frame of mind or in a condition to do so. I believe that this Con- 
vention is not only going to result in the preservation of the Demo- 
cratic party and its great cardinal principles, but it is going to place 
it upon a higher plane than it has occupied for the last quarter of a 
century. [Applause.] We have not, at all times, been honest with the 
people. We have not, at all times, been honest with ourselves; but I 
believe that the men who have gathered here are determined that in 
the future that the Democratic party shall be honest not only with itself, 
but with the people of the whole country. [Applause.] We realize 
that the interests of all classes and all sections are too great to be 
trifled with by platforms that are of doubtful construction. [Applause.] 
If we accomplish nothing more than to re-establish the principles of 
the Democratic party, which are and were the outgrowth of our insti- 
tutions, we shall have accomplished a work that will redound to the 
welfare of future generations. [Applause.] It has been said that we 
are not interested in the nomination of a ticket. We shall not have 
performed our full duty unless we shall nominate standard-bearers rep- 
resentative of the principles we shall enunciate. [Applause.] As said 
in that magnificent declaration which was issued when the call for 
this Convention was made, "For the first time in the history of this 
country since parties were formed, no platform and no candidates are 
in the field representing Democratic principles." We should, therefore, 
not only adopt a platform, but should place upon that platform Demo- 
crats who stand for true principles, and labor unceasingly, from now 
until the time the polls close on election day, for their success. [Ap- 
plause.] Gentlemen of the Convention, I have enlisted in this work 
from an earnest conviction that the discharge of a patriotic duty re- 
quires every citizen to labor to avert what he believes will be a dis- 
aster to his country. [Applause.] I am reminded to-day that in this 
hall, not very long ago, I struggled two hours to secure five minutes 
to address a so-called Democratic convention in defense of a Demo- 
cratic administration for maintaining Democratic principles. How the 
scenes have changed ! I did not then despair that the consciences of the 
true Democrats of this country would be aroused to a realization of the 
dangers that threatened our party, and I am now gratified that that 



60 



realization has been made manifest. [Applause.] I have witnessed 
the growth of this sentiment in the different States of the Union from 
day to day, and I can assure you that that sentiment, that earnestness 
and the courage that is here displayed is taking a deep hold in every 
section of the country, and you will witness one of the most sincere 
and earnest campaigns, during the coming contest, that was ever waged 
in behalf of a great principle. 

The Chairman: The Chair will inquire if the Committee 
on Resolutions is ready to report. I recognize the gentle- 
man from Ohio, Mr. Outhwaite. 

Mr. Outhwaite: I was informed that the Committee on 
Resolutions will be ready in five minutes. 

The Chairman: I see a member of the committee. I 
recognize Mr. Eckels. 

Mr. Eckels: 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — It seems to be a dangerous 
thing to arise in this Convention. I arose simply to announce that the 
Committee on Platform had agreed, and that there would soon be pre- 
sented by the distinguished Senator from the State of Wisconsin a plat- 
form which will do credit to this assemblage. No one looking over 
those who are here gathered would dare assert that the Democratic 
party does not still live, the champion of the people's rights, the quick 
avenger of its wrongs, the best custodian of the people's rights. [Ap- 
plause.] Here are gathered those who are met for conscience's sake. 
Here are met those who are not struggling for the spoils of office nor 
moved by pride of public place. [Applause.] Here are men who see 
the nation's honor sullied by the attacks of those who would make this 
great party of our love and our affection a hissing and a by-word 
throughout the length and breadth of this great land of ours. [Ap- 
plause.] We are here in no unkindly spirit toward anyone. We depre- 
cate the fact that a leadership has taken possession of many of the mis- 
guided people of this country, and for selfish purposes are doing them 
both great financial and great national wrongs. We would extend to 
those who have been carried off by specious reasoning, by pyrotechnic 
oratory, by the jingling sound of a metaphor and the elegant expression 
of a phrase, such a platform and such candidates that he who runs may 
read the error of his way and find here sufficient of the true Democratic 
party and sufficient of the true Democratic faith to once again desire to 
make this his haven of refuge and to here offer his supplication and his 
blessing to the only true Democratic faith. 



61 



If we have accomplished that, this Convention has not been held in 
vain. If we have pointed out their error, if we have withdrawn atten- 
tion from Populistic to Democratic doctrines, if we have thrilled again 
the Democratic party with Democratic thoughts, with Democratic ideas, 
with Democratic aspirations, we have done sufficient to make a grateful 
party wish us the blessings which a party can best bestow, and a grate- 
ful country render to us the homage that is due to patriotism that has 
sufficient courage of its convictions to stand up against a wrong and to 
defiantly assert a right. [Applause.] 

Gentlemen of this Convention, a long series of extravagance in 
public and in private expenditures, undue speculation upon the part of 
individuals and of corporations, the fostering care of monopolies 
through unwise tax legislation, the building up of wrong theories of 
finance by unwise fiscal legislation, the curtailing of credit through the 
operation of these unwise financial laws, have brought the country to a 
state of discontent with existing conditions which these men have 
played upon, and, taking advantage not of the merit of the question 
involved, but of the passions and the discontents of men, have builded 
up a party and a faction which under right and normal conditions would 
not for a single day stand the test of American reason, American com- 
mon sense or American honesty. 

They have built their party upon the false ideas of finance which 
they are teaching, unworthy of a great and mighty people. They have 
fostered their growth by discontent, appealing to passion and to preju- 
dice, but thank God who reigns above, there still remains in every nook 
and corner of this great land of ours sufficient pride of American hon- 
esty, sufficient patriotism of American yoeman, sufficient strength of 
American character to drive them, in the coming election, from the 
spoils of office and into the Slough of such a Despond that they shall 
never again rise to bother the American public or make uncertain the 
question of whether this is a debt-paying nation. [Applause.] 



MR HAMMOND, OF GEORGIA. 

The Chairman: The Chair understands that a gentle- 
man from Georgia desires to address the Convention. If so r 
the Chair invites the gentleman to a seat on the platform. 

H. A. Hammond, of Georgia: 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-Delegates and Fel- 
low-Democrats — It seems perhaps an appropriate thing in such an as- 
sembly as this that we should understand fairly at least the sort of com- 
pany that we are keeping. From away down near the shores of the 
Mexican Gulf, and at some cost of convenience and of comfort, and at 
the sacrifice of many ancient and tender ties, I have journeyed here as 
one of a goodly company of faithful Democrats, not minded to vex you 
with any refined theories or abstractions in regard to national finance or 



62 



national politics of any sort, but bringing with us our simple, homely- 
creed, coming here to take inspiration from your example, courage from 
your conduct and confidence from your sympathy. [Applause.] We 
are a little afraid, Mr. Chairman, to enter into any discussion upon this 
matter of currency and of coinage. 

I say that our creed is a simple and a homely one. A somewhat 
curious gentleman down there not long since found in his researches 
upon this subject a lesson which has come home to us — "A false balance 
is an abomination to the Lord, and a just weight is His delight" [ap- 
plause], and, pursuing our inquiries a little further, we stumbled upon 
another matter of instruction which we straightway adopted, and if you 
are curious to ascertain what it is, by examining the eighth subdivision 
of the twentieth chapter of the book of Exodus, you will find it there 
set forth. That is our creed, our Democratic creed. We ask but little 
addition to be made to this. We are willing to live up to that and by 
that; and it has taught us that it is unwise, as well as immoral, to clip 
the coin or to debase the currency or repudiate our contracts. 

It has been said on the floor of this hall, it was said not many days 
ago by the lips of New York's most eloquent Democrat — rather, how- 
ever, in the way of prognostication — that the Democratic convention 
forgot the plainest requirements of morality and duty, laid aside all the 
approved precedents of Democratic practice and procedure, and re- 
nounced the fundamental and indispensable principles of Democratic 
faith. They did do it, as we understand, at Chicago. But all through 
the Southern savannahs, upon the slopes of the Blue Ridge and the 
Alleghanies, beneath the shadows of Lookout and Kenesaw, away down 
beside the rolling waters of the Gulf of Mexico, there still live Demo- 
crats approved and true — Democrats who, while denouncing this de- 
linquency and despising this dishonesty, will forever remain faithful 
and steadfast to the Democratic faith. 

Another thing, we are told, did happen. Men, Democrats in name 
and by profession — indeed, as that eloquent Democrat of New York 
asserted, Democrats at least wearing the livery of Democrats, clothed 
in the full power, with the insignia of leadership — did meanly attempt 
to barter our birthright for a delusive promise of Populist support. But 
in the name of those same Democrats I assure you that those men in 
whose behalf I speak can never be seduced from the path of honor, 
rectitude and virtue by unworthy candidates whose commissions are 
the outcome of undisguised greed, who, by unreasoning prejudice, 
gather their motley cohorts to assault and assail the foundations of 
social order. But when these gentlemen from Massachusetts and Ver- 
mont and New York, and all the central States of the West, are or- 
ganized for the defense of these precious things, I declare to you that 
these men from the South will answer as they answered with you at 
the first roll-call, and they will stand by you in this contest at the final 
onset. 

I have very little to say about this matter of free silver. Our 
teachings lead us in an opposite direction. We learned some time ago — ■ 
not putting it on very high moral ground — that honesty is the best 



63 



policy. Some of our misguided citizens down that way, being of a 
somewhat impatient temper and an ingenious turn of mind, have gone 
into the practical business of making free silver, and I am sorry to say 
that a good many of them, on account of their ingenuity, are now en- 
joj r ing Federal hospitality in the city of Columbus — a proper place, I 
think, for all who inherit such abominable heresies and fallacies. [Ap- 
plause.] 

We heard with sorrow, even before we left our distant homes on 
this pilgrimage, that our resources had been very much foreshortened. 
"We had heard of the shadow that had fallen upon our party. We had 
heard of that young Russell, of Massachusetts, whose leadership we 
had looked forward to with so much satisfaction and pride, had gone 
out from that convention of unfaithful men and taken with him his 
broken heart to the deep shadows of a Canadian forest. 

We learned that a little later, standing, as he verily believed, by the 
grave of political hopes that might not live again, tired and weary ,of 
the unequal struggle, he gave it up and buried with himself in the grave 
the griefs he could not master. Oh, if we, hearin'g to-day the words of 
Democratic warriors, might it not 

"Rouse dead Duncan from his bier, 
But Lycidas is dead, died ere his prime, 
Young Lycidas, a youth, and has not left his peer." 

And yet we are not without comfort and without hope, for on yester- 
day afternoon you and I could see for ourselves that a man had risen 
on the shores of Massachusetts to take his place — a modern Maccabeus 
Jias risen and summoned his brethren around him, and is going forth to 
assert the honor of the nation's faith and guard from profanation the 
temples of the forefathers. We will be content with your platform; 
we will be proud of your leader, be he the battered veteran of a thou- 
sand political fights or be he some younger man; it matters not to us 
so he be a true man, and a brave man, and has lived a life approved by 
Democratic principles. Let us proceed, then, speedily to the selection 
of such a man as that. Let us clothe him with the insignia of leader- 
ship; let us follow him, and trust him, and obey him, and all will be 
well with us. Put into his hand the banner of Democratic truth, and 
bid him fling that banner forth, skyward and seaward, high and wide, 
proclaiming from its ample folds the faith in which our fathers died. 
[Applause.] 

THE PLATFORM REPORTED. 

E. G. Griffith, of Xew York: Mr. Chairman, I wish 
to ask whether the Committee on Platform is now ready to 
report ? 

The Chairman: The Chair is not able to inform the 
gentleman from New York. 



64 

Mr. Griffith: I move, sir, a recess of one hour. 
The motion was seconded. 

The Chairman: The Convention has heard the motion 
of the gentleman from New York. Are you ready for the 
question? As many as are in favor of taking a recess for 
one hour will say " Aye;" those opposed " No." The " Noes" 
seem to have it. The "Noes" have it. The Convention will 
not take recess. 

The Chair is informed that the Committee on Platform is 
now ready to report and recognizes Hon. William F. Vilas, 
of Wisconsin for the purpose of presenting the report of that 
committee. [Applause.] 

Mr. Vilas, of Wisconsin : Mr. President, I am instructed 
by the Committee on Resolutions to report the following as 
a platform of principles for submission to the Convention, 
and at the conclusion of the report to make the formal 
motion that it be adopted. [Applause.] 

This Convention has assembled to uphold the principles upon which 
depend the honor and welfare of the American people [applause], in 
order that Democrats throughout the Union may unite their patriotic 
efforts to avert disaster from their country and rum from their party. 

The Democratic party is pledged to equal and exact justice to all 
men of every creed and condition; to the largest freedom of the indi- 
vidual consistent with good government; to the preservation of the 
Federal government in its constitutional vigor, and to the support of 
the States in all their just rights [applause]; to economy in the public 
expenditures; to the maintenance of the public faith and sound money 
[applause] ; and it is opposed to paternalism and all class legislation. 

CHICAGO PLATFORM CONDEMNED. 

The declarations of the Chicago convention attack individual free- 
dom, the right of private contract, the independence of the judiciary 
and the authority of the President to enforce Federal laws. They ad- 
vocate a reckless attempt to increase the price of silver by legislation 
to the debasement of our monetary standard, and threaten unlimited 
issues of paper money by the government. They abandon for Repub- 
lican allies the Democratic cause of tariff reform to court the favor of 
protectionists to their fiscal heresy. 

In view of these and other grave departures from Democratic prin- 
ciples, we cannot support the candidates of that convention nor be 
bound by its acts. [Applause.] The Democratic party has survived 
many defeats, but could not survive a victory won in behalf of the doc- 
trine and policy proclaimed in its name at Chicago. [Applause.] 



65 



The conditions, however, which make possible such utterances from 
a national convention are the direct result of class legislation by the 
Republican party. [Applause.] It still proclaims, as it has for years, 
the power and duty of government to raise and maintain prices by law; 
and it proposes no remedy for existing evils except oppressive and un- 
just taxation. 

DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 

The National Democracy, here reconvened, therefore renews its 
declaration of faith in Democratic principles, especially as applicable 
to the conditions of the times. 

Taxation, tariff, excise or direct, is rightfully imposed only for 
public purposes, and not for private gain. [Applause.] Its amount is 
justly measured by public expenditures, which should be limited by 
scrupulous economy. The sum derived by the treasury from tariff and 
excise levies is affected by the state of trade and volume of consump- 
tion. The amount required by the treasury is determined by the ap- 
propriations made by Congress. The demand of the Republican party 
for an increase in tariff taxation has its pretext in the deficiency of 
revenue, which has its causes in the stagnation of trade and reduced 
consumption* due entirely to the loss of confidence that has followed 
the Populist threat of free coinage and depreciation of our money and 
the Republican practice of extravagant appropriations beyond the needs 
of good government. [Applause.] We arraign and condemn the Popu- 
listic conventions of Chicago and St. Louis [applause] for their co- 
operation with the Republican party in creating these conditions, which 
are pleaded in justification of a heavy increase of the burdens of the 
people by a further resort to protection. [Applause.] We, therefore, 
denounce protection and its ally, free coinage of silver [applause], as 
schemes for the personal profit of a few at the expense of the masses, 
and oppose the two parties which stand for these schemes as hostile to 
the people of the Republic, whose food and shelter, comfort and pros- 
perity are attacked by higher taxes and depreciated money. [Applause.] 

TARIFF. 

In fine, we reaffirm the historic Democratic doctrine of tariff for 
revenue only. [Applause.] 

We demand that henceforth modern and liberal policies toward 
American shipping shall take the place of our imitation of the restricted 
statutes of the eighteenth century, which were long ago abandoned by 
every maratime power but the United States, and which, to the nation's 
humiliation, have driven American capital and enterprise to the use of 
alien flags and alien crews, have made the stars and stripes an almost 
unknown emblem in foreign ports, and have virtually extinguished the 
race of American seamen. We oppose the pretense that discriminating 
duties will promote shipping; that scheme is an invitation to commer- 
cial warfare upon the United States, un-American in the light of our 
great commercial treaties, offering no gain whatever to American ship- 
ping, while greatly increasing ocean freights on our agricultural and 
manufactured products. 



66 



FOR A GOLD STANDARD. 

The experience of mankind has shown that by reason of their 
natural qualities gold is the necessary money of the large affairs of 
commerce and business, while silver is conveniently adapted to minor 
transactions, and the most beneficial use of both together can be insured 
only by the adoption of the former as a standard of monetary measure 
[applause] and the maintenance of silver at a parity with gold by its 
limited coinage under suitable safeguards of law. [Applause.] Thus 
the largest possible enjoyment of both metals is gained with a value 
universally accepted throughout the world, which constitutes the only 
practical bimetallic currency [applause], assuring the most stable stand- 
ard, and especially the best and safest money for all who earn their 
livelihood by labor or the produce of husbandry. They cannot suffer 
when paid in the best money known to man [applause], but are the 
peculiar and most defenseless victims of a debased and fluctuating cur- 
rency, which offers continual profits to the money-changer at their cost. 

Realizing these truths, demonstrated by long public inconvenience 
and less, the Democratic party, in the interests of. the masses and of 
equal justice to all, practically established by the legislation of 1834 and 
1853 the gold standard of monetary measurement, and likewise entirely 
divorced the government from banking and currency issues. [Ap- 
plause.] To this long-established Democratic policy we adhere [ap- 
plause] , and insist upon the maintenance of the gold standard [ap- 
plause], and of the parity therewith of every dollar issued by the gov- 
ernment [applause], and are firmly opposed to the free and unlimited 
coinage of silver and to the compulsory purchase of silver bullion. 
[Applause.] But we denounce also the further maintenance of the 
present costly patchwork system of national paper currency as a con- 
stant source of injury and peril. [Applause.] 

We assert the necessity of such intelligent currency reform as will 
confine the government to its legitimate functions, completely separated 
from the banking business [applause], and afford to all sections of our 
country a uniform, safe and elastic bank currency under governmental 
supervision, measured in volume by the needs of business. [Cries of 
"Good," "Good," and applause.] 

THE ADMINISTRATION. 

The fidelity, patriotism and courage with which President Cleveland 
[applause] has fulfilled his great public trust, the high character of his 
administration, its wisdom and energy in the maintenance of civil order 
and the enforcement of the laws [applause], its equal regard for the 
rights of every class and every section, its firm and dignified conduct 
of foreign affairs [applause], and its sturdy persistence in upholding the 
credit and honor of the nation, are fully recognized by the Democratic 
party [applause], and will secure to him a place in history beside the 
fathers of the Republic. 

We also commend the administration for the great progress made 
in the reform of the public service, and we indorse its effort to extend 



67 



the merit system still further. [Applause.] We demand that no back- 
ward step be taken, but that the reform be supported and advanced 
until the un-Democratic spoils system of appointments shall be eradi- 
cated. [Applause.] 

OTHER AFFAIRS. 

We demand strict economy in the appropriations and in the admin- 
istration of the government. 

We favor arbitration for the settlement of international disputes. 
[Applause.] 

We favor a liberal policy of pensions to deserving soldiers and 
sailors of the United States. 

The Supreme Court of the United States was wisely established by 
the framers of our Constitution as one of the three co-ordinate branches 
of the government. Its independence and authority to interpret the law 
of the land, without fear or favor, must be maintained. [Applause.] 
We condemn all efforts to degrade that tribunal, or impair the confi- 
dence and respect which it has deservedly held. 

The Democratic party ever has maintained, and ever will maintain, 
the supremacy of law, the independence of its judicial administration, 
the inviolability of contract, and the obligations of all good citizens to 
resist every illegal trust, combination or attempt against the just rights- 
of property and the good order of society [applause], in which are 
bound up the peace and happiness of our people. 

Believing these principles to be essntial to the well-being of the 
Republic, we submit them to the consideration of the American people. 
[Great applause, delegates rising to their feet and cheering.] 

Mr. President, before such a body as this no argument 
can be necessary to the full understanding of the propositions 
and principles set forth in the platform which is proposed for 
your consideration ; and therefore, with due recognition of 
all the circumstances of the hour, I shall omit any argument 
or speech for the purpose of advancing its consideration, but 
will proceed directly to discharge the office which the com- 
mittee imposed upon me, and move the adoption of these 
resolutions. 

The motion was seconded. 

The Chairman: Gentlemen, you have heard the motion 
of the gentleman from Wisconsin. Are you ready for the 
question ? Those in favor of the adoption of the resolution 
will say "Aye;" those opposed "No." The "Ayes" have it 
and the resolutions are adopted. [Cheers.] 



68 



J. A. Outhwaite, of Ohio: Mr. President, I move 
the Convention now take recess until half-after three o'clock. 

[Cries of "No," "No."] 

The motion was not seconded. 

"W*. P. C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky: I move that 
this Convention do now put upon that most excellent plat- 
form a candidate for President and Vice-President, and pro- 
ceed with the nomination thereof. 

The motion was seconded. 

The Chairman: The question is on the motion of the 
gentleman from Kentucky to proceed to the nomination of 
candidates for President and Vice-President on the platform 
just adopted. Are you ready for the question? Those in 
favor of the motion will say "Aye;" those opposed "No." 
The "Ayes" seem to have it. The "Ayes" have it. The 
motion is carried. 

Mr. Breckenridge, of Kentucky: Mr. President, I move 
that the nominations be made by a call of the States, so that 
as each State is called the nomination, if the suggestion is 
acceptable, will be made. 

The Chairman: The Chair will inform the gentleman 
that the rules so provide. 

Mr. Breckenridge: I did not know that. I withdraw 
my motion. 

The Chairman : The Secretary will call the roll of the 

States. 

The Secretary: Alabama. 

Thomas Gr. Jones, of Alabama: Mr. President, Alabama 
yields to Kentucky. 

A. J. Carroll, of Kentucky: 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Convention, some weeks ago, 
when it was problematical as to the proportions this movement would 
assume, and when even its most enthusiastic advocate could not fore- 
tell that in so short a time there would be so great an uprising among 
the sober, thoughtful people in the Democratic party as to insure the 



69 



assembling of so magnificent a convention as this, there were a num- 
ber of gentlemen outside of Kentucky who believed that there might 
be difficulty in securing a man of sufficient proportions to lead the fight, 
and that it might be necessary to draft some one to head a forlorn hope. 

In that condition they turned their eyes toward Kentucky, know- 
ing, as we are proud to believe, that in that State they could find men 
big enough and broad enough and brave enough to lend strength to 
any movement, and. whose courage of conviction and fidelity were such 
that they would shirk no responsibility nor refuse to take up any bur- 
den when their country or their party called, no matter how great the 
sacrifice to themselves. [Applause.] 

They turned to one of Kentucky's sons, whose name is indissolubly 
linked with that of the Democratic party, and whose fame is not con- 
fined to the limits of the continent. That citizen of Kentucky was and 
had been for some months absent in foreign climes, engaged in a work 
in which his heart and mind are enlisted — a work of committing to the 
pages of indelible history the story of the life and deeds of a man, born 
in Kentucky, whose character furnished one of the imperishable glories 
of the Republic. 

In his retirement among the mountains of Switzerland came to him 
repeated messages from many of his countrymen telling him that he 
must put aside his wishes and desires, lay down his pen and take up 
again the banner of Democracy, which, through all the years of his 
manhood, he has helped to hold aloft. 

Persistently he refused, expressing his earnest and honest, desire 
that the labors and the honors be placed on another's shoulders, but at 
length, when the impression was made upon his mind that it was in 
the nature of an urgent duty, he responded in a published interview, 
in which, after reviewing the personal sacrifice it would entail and re- 
iterating the desire that some one else be chosen, he made the state- 
ment that he had never in his life asked anyone to go where he would 
not go himself, and that for country, party and principle he would make 
the fight, if no one else could be found to make it, even though it led to 
the stake. [Applause.] 

Since that time this splendid gathering of undaunted Democrats 
has sprung into being, and there has been found a number of most 
worthy leaders who will make the fight. In view, therefore, of that., 
this great cause will not suffer for lack of a general, and in view of the 
further fact that Kentucky has indorsed for consideration at the hands of 
this Convention the claims of another illustrious son who in his person 
and character typifies and stands for ail that is best in Kentucky man- 
hood, he has sent a message across the sea, and, as his fellow-towns- 
man and close friend, I am authorized to say that he does not desire his 
name to be presented to this Convention. No words of mine can ex- 
press the warmth of the feelings which I know are in his heart toward 
those who have sought to do him honor and are engaged in this great 
fight, but I feel that I can say that in the future, so long as life and 
strength remain, he will always be found, as in the past, battling for 
the right as he sees the right, and for the undying principles of De- 
mocracy. [Applause.] 



70 

The Chairman: The Secretary will resume the calling 
of the roll. 

The Secretary: Arkansas. 

Mr. S. W. Fordyce, of Arkansas: Mr. Chairman, Ar- 
kansas asks to be passed for the present. 

The Secretary: California. 

Mr. John P. Irish, of Calfornia: I am instructed by my 
colleagues on the California delegation to say that California, 
having no name to present, with the assent of the conven- 
tion, yields her place to the State of Michigan. 

The Chairman: The gentleman from Michigan will take 
the platform — Mr. Lemuel L. Kilbourne. 

Lemuel L. Kilbourne, of Michigan : 

Gentlemen of the Convention — I am very proud to be privileged 
to-day to have the State of which I have the honor to be a member 
occupy for the time being a place on this platform rightfully belonging 
to the State of California. As I listened yesterday to the eloquent words 
of the gentleman of that State who stood before us, I thought that we 
should change the old refrain and put in place of it "The Irish may 
apply." [Applause.] Gentlemen of the Convention, I come from the 
State of Michigan, one of a body of twenty-eight delegates to this Dem- 
ocratic Convention, for the purpose of assisting in rebuilding the Demo- 
cratic temple and erecting within it a shrine at which none but Demo- 
crats shall ever kneel. [Applause.] We in the State of Michigan have 
Tiad an opportunity to know something of the gentlemen who talk of 
free silver. Two years ago our people, beguiled by the silver cry, yielded 
in a weak moment and placed in their platform a declaration in favor 
of the free and unlimited coinage of silver, because we were told by 
the advocates of that theory that we could carry the State against our 
Republican adversaries, and that we v/ould bring untold blessings to 
the laboring people of the commonwealth. 

We yielded in a weak and evil moment, and with the result that 
whereas Mr. Cleveland only lacked 23,000 votes of carrying that State 
four years ago, the nominee of the free-silver Democratic convention 
of Michigan was buried under a Republican majority of 104,000. [Ap- 
plause.] A few months ago, when the people of my State were engaged 
in their town meetings and had to elect a judge of our Supreme Court, 
a gentleman who had presided as the chief justice of that tribunal, but 
who had yielded to the heresy of free silver, placed himself before the 
people as the exponent of the doctrine of free coinage, and he said to 
his friends throughout the State, "I will show you now that this doc- 
trine meets the approval of the intelligent people of the commonwealth. 



71 



of Michigan." At that town meeting, when the votes were cast, the 
free-silver candidate was buried under a majority of 88,000 votes. So, 
my friends, we in Michigan have reason to adopt another and a different 
standard. We sent delegates to the convention held at Chicago who 
represented the sentiments of the true Democracy of Michigan, and 
when they reached there we found their faces not only turned to the 
wall, but faced about and made to play a make-weight for the Popu- 
listic tide that enabled Mr. Bryan to stand before the public as the 
fraudulent candidate of the Democracy of the Union. 

Humiliated and ashamed, we left that convention, little knowing 
where we might go for consolation and relief; but, gentlemen, there 
soon gathered in Grand Rapids, in our State, a body of loyal Democrats 
and issued a call for the State convention to be held at the Capitol. 
That convention was held, and while also acting in unison with the 
gentlemen who met in this city, we placed a Democratic State ticket in 
the field, and the nominee of that convention, protesting that he had 
no time to make a political campaign, and that his business and health 
would not permit it, finally yielded to the solicitude of his friends, and 
to-day we have him here, Hon. Rufus P. Sprague, the Democratic nom- 
inee of the State of Michigan for Governor [applause], and 50,000 of 
the Democrats of Michigan will poll their votes for him next November 
[applause]; and if we can follow it up in this Convention by the nom- 
ination of a gentleman who in himself represents the doctrines of 
Democracy, we will insure the electoral vote of the State of Michigan 
against the Populistic ticket of Chicago. [Great applause.] 

Now, gentlemen, I am commissioned — and I am proud of that com- 
mission — by the delegation from the State of Michigan to present to you 
as the choice of Michigan a gentleman whom we believe embodies in 
the greatest, most concise and statesmanlike manner the doctrines 
enunciated in that magnificent platform which has just been presented 
to you — a man who has for long j^ears been known to the people of this 
country, who has been not a professed but a real friend of the working- 
men of this Union, who has been first and foremost in every movement 
for the relief of the people of this country from the tyranny of taxation, 
who has stood as a tower of strength and of light in this great North- 
western country, and we believe with him in nomination we can go 
hack to Michigan and warm the hearts of our wandering Democrats 
and bring them back to the fold; and that you may accomplish the 
same thing through every commonwealth of this country. 

I am, gentlemen, here for the purpose of presenting the choice of 
Michigan, a gentleman whom we expect will take the standard that was 
first reared by Jefferson's hands, carried by Jackson and is upheld to- 
day by Grover Cleveland [applause], and that he will carry that banner 
leading this movement on to a restored Democracy — a prouder victory 
than a victory that is crowned by the emoluments of office, because it 
will lead a betrayed and insulted people back into the paths that the 
fathers trod for them, and it will be the beginning of a new Democratic 
party that shall bestow its unnumbered blessings upon this and coming 
generations. Gentlemen, I have the honor to name to you that gallant 



72 



son and magnificent statesman of the State of Illinois, John M. Palmer. 
[Great cheering and waving of handkerchiefs, the delegates rising to 
their feet.] 

The Chairman: The Chair recognizes Hon. John J. 
Enright, of Michigan. 

John J, Enright, of Michigan: I wish also on behalf of 
the delegation from Michigan to second the nomination of 
Senator John M. Palmer. The Democracy nominated the 
immortal hero of Gettysburg, Winfield Scott Hancock, 
because the Democracy was satisfied with his record. The 
Democracy nominated Samuel J. Tilden, because she was 
satisfied with his record. The Democracy nominated and 
elected that grand man and American patriot, Grover Cleve- 
land, because she was satisfied with his record. The Democ- 
racy of Michigan now takes pleasure in seconding the nomi- 
nation of Senator John M. Palmer because they know and 
are satisfied with his record. 

John P. Irish, of California: Mr. President, I rise to a 
point of order. 

The Chairman: The gentleman from California rises to 
a point of order. The gentleman will please state his point 
of order. 

John P. Irish, of California: Mr. President, the point 
of order to which I rise is that the States are being called for 
the presentation of names for President, and not for second- 
ing speeches. 

The Chairman: The Chair is of the opinion that the 
point of order is not well taken. The gentleman from 
Michigan will proceed. If he is through, the Secretary will 
resume the calling of the roll of States. 

The Secretary: Colorado. Connecticut. 

Thomas M. Waller, of Connecticut: Mr. President, 
Connecticut yields to Wisconsin. 

Jas. G. Elanders*, of Wisconsin: Mr. President, the 
choice of Wisconsin will be presented by Hon. Bird W. Jones, 
of Madison. 



73 



Bird "W". Jones, of Wisconsin : 

i 

I do not quite quote the language of the gentleman from Texas who 
once in a Republican convention became known to fame when I ask, 
"What are we here for, if not for our principles?" 

Representing the delegation of Wisconsin, representing that State, I 
desire to say just a word concerning Wisconsin politics. Although in 
former years Wisconsin was classed as a Republican State, in 1890 the 
Democracy was successful, and in 1892 Wisconsin again cast a hand- 
some majority for the State and electoral tickets of the Democratic 
party. But about two years ago the pendulum swung to Republicanism 
again. About sixty days ago, in convention assembled, the Democracy 
of Wisconsin sent a delegation to the Chicago convention pledged to 
honest money and the gold standard. To-day there are gathered to- 
gether in Milwaukee in another convention, our erring and misguided 
brethren, who are singing the hosannas to free silver, and who, content 
in their quick conversion, are already anticipating the spoils of victory. 

There are others now wavering and uncertain whether they shall 
bow to or turn away from the false prophets now clothed in the livery of 
Democracy. The sound money men of Wisconsin are unanimous in the 
belief that the man who can best rally those who now hesitate as to 
their duty in Wisconsin and in this nation is that matchless leader 
whose name is a household word in every home in Wisconsin — more 
than that, whose deathless courage and devotion to this government are 
a part of the glory of our Republic. As 1 utter these words there comes 
to the mind of every man in this audience the name of the dauntless 
commandar of the old Iron Brigade, the hero of fifty battles, fighting 
Ed. Bragg, of the United States army. [Applause.] 

In the great national conventions of our party for more than thirty 
years he has been a leader in the counsels of Democracy. For eight 
years in the halls of Congress he represented his State, and, as the 
chairman of important committees, was tried and trusted by his State 
and nation. His record as a legislator and as the representative of our 
government at a foreign court are an open book to which we invite 
your inspection with utmost fearlessness. General Bragg is a modest 
man, and if I were to pretend that he has never erred he would re- 
pudiate the claim. But I do assert that he has never misled the people 
by ambiguous phrases. And if he has ever had reason to change his 
views on any subject, he was honest and bold enough to tell the truth. 
Moreover, it is part of the political history of our State that for many 
years the views of General Bragg upon the great question which now 
divides the Democratic party have been in full accord with that wing 
of the party which is represented here to-day. 

General Bragg is one of the ablest lawyers of the Northwest, and 
hence he can only abhor this dogma of the Chicago convention that the 
Supreme Court of the United States should be packed for the purpose 
of partisan plunder. 



17 



4 



THINGS HE OPPOSES. 

"His Democracy goes back, without a break, almost to the days of 
Jackson. Hence he can only loathe the modern doctrine that a great 
government should compel creditors, public and private, to accept pay- 
ment of their debts in a depreciated and dishonest currency. 

General Bragg, as a citizen-soldier, loves law and order as the very 
apple of his eye. How could he but turn in abhorrence from that plat- 
form which stretches out to lawlessness the right hand of encourage- 
ment and fellowship? 

It would be a fitting response to the conduct of the Chicago conven- 
tion and to the insults it heaped upon our President if this Convention 
should nominate one in whom Grover Cleveland has more than once 
expressed special confidence and favor. [Applause.] If the Chicago 
convention could not, General Bragg does recognize the fact that every 
hour of his career Grover Cleveland has stood ready to sacrifice himself 
on the altar of revenue reform [applause] ; that the reforms in the civil 
service alone during the last two Democratic administrations will en- 
dure as a monument to the courage and patriotism of Mr. Cleveland 
when the whole miserable work of the Chicago convention will be re- 
membered by Americans only in humiliation and shame. 

In a campaign in which the masses of a great people are invited by 
every art of the demagogue and by every appeal to prejudice to depart 
from the principles of common honesty, we shall need as our leaders 
men whose courage has been tested and tempered in the fiercest heat of 
repeated conflicts. We must appeal to the highest moral sense of the 
American people, to their national pride, to their sense of honor. They 
never yet have proved dishonest. I believe they never will. 

If there is any doubt as to the courage of General Bragg, go ask 
the battle-scarred veterans who faced him at the second battle of Bull 
Run, at South Mountain, at Antietam, at the battles of Fredericksburg, 
and during the long struggles of the Wilderness. 

During these days of processions and crowded streets in Indian- 
apolis, the old veterans who wore the blue and the old veterans who 
wore the gray have vied in their tributes of love and honor to the old 
commander. All the world honors the man who knows how to fight 
in time of war, and how to forget and love in time of peace. 

THE MEN TO NOMINATE. 

If, in this great civil battle, which must now be fought to the end, 
it should be the pleasure of this Convention to nominate one who fought 
under the stars and stripes, and another of equal valor who fought 
under the stars and bars, the sound money Democracy would rally as 
one man under the old veterans, marching no longer face to face in 
deadly conflict, but shoulder to shoulder under one banner on which 
should be inscribed: "The national honor shall be preserved." 

Proudly we present to you the name of General Bragg. We love 
him for his splendid record of his long civil life, for the Democracy, 
for revenue reform and for good government. We love him no less 



75 



for his bravery in the battles he has fought on tented fields. We love 
him because he has never worshiped at the glittering shrine of tempo- 
rary success. We love him not only for "the enemies he has made," 
but because he is the friend of honest men and an honest dollar. We 
who have gathered in this Convention have thereby pledged ourselves 
to maintain this struggle for honest money. We have enlisted for the 
war. No matter whom you may name for your commander, General 
Ed. Bragg will be in the thickest of the fight. He would be lonesome 
anywhere else. He would gladly buckle on his sword as a private in the 
ranks, but we ask you, in the name of those who love him in Wisconsin, 
and in behalf of hundreds of thousands who wait expectant in other 
States, will it not be best to let the gallant old General lead the charge? 
[Great applause.] 

The Chairman: The Secretary will proceed with the 
calling of the roll. 

The Secretary resumed the calling of the roll. When 
the State of Florida was called — 

H. H. Putnam, of Florida: Mr. President, Florida 
desired to place in nomination the name of one who is loved 
and honored above all others by the American people 
throughout this land, but she desires now to make a state- 
ment through her representative, Hon. J. "W. Hartridge, and 
she asks the courtesy of this Convention for that purpose. 

J. W. Hartridge, of Florida: 

Gentlemen of the Convention, what I shall have to say to you will 
possess the merit of brevity, if nothing else. I am charged by my dele- 
gation with a message which I desire to deliver to this Convention. 
We came here for the purpose of setting, so far as we could, our seal 
of condemnation upon a dollar that had an interrogation point behind 
it. [Applause.] We came here to put our foot upon a dollar that hesi- 
tated and asked its value when it crossed the border of its State. We 
came here to advocate a dollar that was good on land and on sea in 
every civilized country on earth. [Applause.] We came here for the 
purpose of fighting that profanation of principles that took place at 
Chicago. We came here to inaugurate a warfare against that unholy 
trinity, the Populists, the so-called Democrats and the Silverites of the 
Chicago convention and the St. Louis convention. [Applause.] 

Standing here for that purpose, we believe that the gentleman who 
has illustrated the Democratic party in the United States for two terms 
embodies, more nearly than any other person, our ideas. It was our 
purpose when we came here to place his name before the Convention, 
because we believed, my friends, that to-day the civilized v/orld is stand- 
ing with its ear acute to hear the sound that comes from this Conven- 



76 

tion, as the Scottish lassie put an ear to the ground, acute by suffering: 
and famine at Lucknow, and caught the music of the bagpipes of Have- 
lock's army as they progressed to their rescue. So the people of the- 
world to-day stand with their ears acute with anxiety, listening to the^ 
sound that shall come from this Convention in no uncertain way to set 
them in the path that they should follow, and from which the Chicago 
convention deviated. [Applause.] 

I only want to say this much, my friends, upon the part of the 
Florida delegation, that we, with hearty and entire unanimity second 
the nomination of Mr. Palmer, of Illinois. [Great applause.] 

The Chairman: The Secretary will proceed with the 
call of the roll. 

The Secretary resumed the calling of the roll. When 
the State of Georgia was called — 

Mr. Hammond, of Georgia: Mr. President, Georgia has; 
no name to present, no candidate, but Georgia desires to 
make a statement through the lips of one of its eloquent 
delegates, Hon. Thomas F. Gorrigan, and requests the favor 
of the Convention for that purpose. 

The Chairman: The Chair recognizes Hon. Thomas F 
Corrigan, of Georgia: 

Thomas F. Corrigan, of Georgia: 

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Convention — I am instructed by a 
majority of the delegates from Georgia to second the nomination of 
Hon. John M. Palmer, of Illinois. In doing so I desire to supplement 
that utterance with an observation that I think at least is timely. This 
is the first supreme moment of assurance of the restoration of the 
national honor that has been vouchsafed to the American people since 
the free-sliver blight was conceived and launched. The battle of the 
standards was called and has waged with fury and unequalled fierce- 
ness upon the plains of the American Waterloo, but Blucher has ar- 
rived. In this Convention we see much to hope for. We see in it an. 
assurance, a rekindled hope of American honor and Democratic future. 
We believe that John M. Palmer [applause] is the proper man to meet, 
upon the field of contest the champion of the free-silver mob of disloyal 
Democrats, Populists and Republicans who met at Chicago and chose 
the man who was loudest in his determination to bolt the party if his 
free-silver views were not adopted — the man who, when the infuriated 
mob invaded the precincts of the holy of holies, rushed out with a cross 
of gold, that sign of man's redemption, and with derision and mockery 
carried himself into the nomination of parties swayed by midsummer 
madness. [Applause.] 



77 

The Chairman: The Secretary will resume the calling 
of the roll. 

The Secretary: Idaho. Illinois. 

Henry S. Pobbins, of Illinois: Mr. President, Illinois 
asks, for the present, to be passed. 

The Secretary: Indiana. 

August Brentano, of Indiana: Mr. Chairman, Indiana 
has no candidate. 

The Secretary: Iowa. 

L. M. Martin, of Iowa: Mr. President, Iowa has no 
candidate. 

The Secretary : Kansas. 

Thomas P. Fenlan, of Kansas: Mr. President, Kansas 
has no candidates to present. 

The Secretary : Kentucky. 

George M. Davie, of Kentucky: Mr. President, Ken- 
tucky has no candidate to present for President. 

The Secretary: Louisiana. 

Charles Janvier, of Louisiana: Mr. President, Louis- 
iana has no candidiate to present and no speech to make. 
[Applause.] We say that no matter who the candidates may 
be we are all heart and soul for them, and will support them 
in Louisiana. 

The Secretary: Maine. 

C. Vey Holman, of Maine: Mr. President, Maine has 
no candidate to present, but we pledge to our fellow-Demo- 
crats our warm and ardent support to the candidate of this 
National Democratic Convention [applause]; but John M. 
Palmer is good enough for us. [Applause]. 

The Secretary: Massachusetts. 

William Everett, of Massachusetts: Mr. President, 
Massachusetts presents no candidate, and will be glad to vote 
as soon as we can get to a ballot. 



78 

The Secretary: Michigan. Minnesota. 

F. M. W. Cutcheon, of Minnesota: 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention — I shall take but a 
moment of your time. [Applause and laughter.] Until an hour ago 
Minnesota had a candidate to present to this Convention. When the 
alleged Democrats of the Chicago convention had put a smirch upon the 
name of Democracy and upon the honor of the nation, one of Minne- 
sota's bravest sons came back and, like a loyal Democrat and son of 
the North Star State, refused to submit. He did not stop to discuss the 
question of whether he was a revolutionist or a Democrat [applause], 
but called the loyal Democrats of Minnesota together and raised the 
banner of true Democracy, and until an hour ago it was the purpose 
of the Democrats of Minnesota to ask you to consider as a fit candidate 
for standard-bearer of our party David W. Lawler, of the North Star 
State. [Great applause.] But, gentlemen, we have become convinced 
that there is but one man whose name is fit to link with that leader of 
Southern chivalry, General Buckner, of Kentucky. [Applause.] And 
that is that gallant and sturdy old war-horse of Illinois, John M. Palmer. 
Ally cnce more the blue and the gray, and I pledge you that the true 
Democrats of the United States, joining hands as the gallant boys of 
'61 joined hands, whether Republicans or Democrats, will march for- 
ward once more, if not to victory, at least to the preservation of the 
nation's honor. [Applause.] 

The Chairman: The Secretary will continue the calling 
of the roll. 

The Secretary: Mississippi. 

H. M. Street, of Mississippi: Mr. Chairman, Missis- 
sippi has no candidate, and not a man in the delegation that 
can make a speech. [Applause.] 

The Secretary: Missouri. 

Frederick Lehman, of Missouri: 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention — The encourage- 
ment that you are giving to speech-making [laughter] is enough to 
sustain the weakest heart. The delegates from Missouri came to this 
Convention, expecting to present for your consideration, under the in- 
structions of their State, the name of their fellow-citizen, Col. James 
O. Broadhead. The purity of his private life, his high abilities, his up- 
rightness of character, his wide experience in professional and public 
affairs, make him worthy of any distinction that you might confer. 
But he has declined to permit us to use his name, and we reluctantly 
acquiesce in his decision. "We meet here, gentlemen, forewarned of 
defeat. No candidate whom we may name can be elected. [Cries of 
"Don't believe it!" "No!" "No!"] Let us face the worst," and let us 



79 



take even for granted that he may not carry even one electoral vote. 
[Cries of "Don't believe it!" repeated.] Though our hope is forlorn, 
our effort will not be in vain. [Applause.] If we worthily sustain this 
contest, it will prove a new Thermopylae, the sacrifice of individuals 
and the salvation of the nation. 

The supreme requirement of leadership in such an emergency is su- 
preme courage, a courage which needs not the prospect of victory to in- 
cite it to action, a courage which can find in duty alone inspiration to the 
utmost doing and the utmost daring. [Applause.] We find this need met 
by a distinguished citizen of the United States, who has been all his life 
inured to the fight in field and forum, who has borne himself with equal 
gallantry in battle and in debate, who has the impetuous courage of 
the Cavalier in attack and the stubborn courage of the Roundhead in 
defense — a man who is no more afraid of a metaphor than he is of a 
musket. [Immense applause and waving of hands.] I second the nom- 
ination of the grim, gray, grizzled veteran, the iron leader of the Iron 
Brigade, General Edwin S. Bragg, of Wisconsin. [Great applause.] 

The Chairman: The Secretary will proceed with the 
calling of the roll. 

The Secretary: Montana. 

James T. Sanford, of Montana: Mr. President, Mon- 
tana has no candidate. 

The Secretary: Nebraska. 

C. 0. Montgomery, of Nebraska: Mr. President, Nebraska 
thinks she has already furnished one too many candidates 
for the presidency. [Great applause, followed by three cheers 
for Nebraska.] 

Clarence E. Carr, of Nebraska: Mr. President, we de- 
sire to send through the Nebraska delegation to the Nebraska 
candidate for the presidency the message, "You shall not 
place upon our lips the Judas Iscariot kiss." 

The Secretary: Nevada. New Hampshire. 

Gordon Woodberry, of New Hampshire: Mr. President, 
New Hampshire takes pleasure in seconding the nomination 
of the gallant gentleman from Illinois, Gen. John M. Palmer. 

The Secretary : New Jersey. New York. 

Mr. Griffin, of New York: Mr. President, New York 
has no candidate. 



80 



The Secretary : North Carolina. North Dakota. 
Ohio. 

Mr. Holding, of Ohio: Mr. President, with her usual 
modesty, the State of Ohio presents no candidate. 

The Secretary: Oregon. 

L. L. Mc Arthur, of Oregon: 

My interest in this Convention, in the cause for which it stands, 
is attested by the fact that I came here with my colleagues from Oregon 
in answer to a call of duty and of patriotism. As I stand in the midst 
of this august Convention, every fibre of my body thrills with pride. 
I am proud that I am an American citizen, and I am proud that I am a 
Democrat. [Applause.] I am doubly proud that there are so many 
other Democrats in this fair land who are determined to rebuke the 
party treason of the Chicago convention. [Applause.] Ours is the 
righteous duty of pressing home upon the dull comprehension of the 
leaders of that convention the fact that there are in our ranks over a 
million independent Democrats who spurn their platform and reject 
their candidates. Those Democrats who have the courage of their con- 
victions and are determined to fight as never men fought before to re- 
cover their surrendered banners and to re-establish the principles of 
their party, so basely abjured. We have another lofty duty to perform 
of insisting upon honesty in the assertion of principles of government 
policies. From this time forth let it be a maxim of politics in this 
country that the party that is not honest does not deserve success. To 
lead us in this crisis we need a great and an honest and a determined 
man, one loyal to our cause [cheers], party principles and in the ap- 
plication of party principles to governmental policies. Prom this time 
forth let it be a maxim of politics in this country that the party which 
is not honest does not deserve and will not attain success. [Cheers.] 
Let us stand steadfast for honest money, honest policies and honest 
government. To lead us in this crisis we need a brave and honest and 
a determined man, one loyal to our cause and devoted to its principles. 
I disparage no one when I say that General Bragg is the man for this 
service. Not only in council and debate has he displayed conspicuous 
ability, but on the field of battle he has evinced undaunted courage. 
Under his leadership we shall be found in the thickest of the fight, and, 
though we may fall in the contest, every wound that we receive will be 
found in the front. I second the nomination of General Bragg. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Zera Snow, of Oregon: 

Mr. Chairman, the Oregon delegation has met with the National 
Democrats in Indianapolis to help right the great wrong perpetrated at 
Chicago, to which, I regret to say, Oregon in some part contributed. 
Our delegation is here, however, for principles rather than for candi- 



81 



dates, for measures rather than for men. We earnestly desire the 
adoption of the gold standard plank in the platform, and a resolution 
looking to the permanent organization of this Convention; and that 
being done, we consider our mission practically fulfilled. But the duty 
of the delegate is only half done at this crisis in aiding in the estab- 
lishment of true Democratic principles. At this particular juncture 
much which we have accomplished might be lost in the personnel of our 
candidate. I rise, therefore, in behalf of part of the delegation, to sec- 
ond the nomination of the gentleman who has already been nominated 
to this Convention. While Oregon and its delegation are united in its 
principles, united in its devotion to our party and the country, its dele- 
gation is not always agreed as to methods and means; and while we 
love General Bragg for himself and for the record he has made, which 
is a part of the history of our country, and while we love him for his 
loves and the expression he has given to his loves, yet in behalf of part 
of the Oregon delegation I desire to second the nomination of that 
grand old man from Illinois, General John M. Palmer. [Applause.] 
General Palmer needs no encomium from me. His public record is 
the common heritage of our country. We second his nomination, there- 
fore, not because we love Csesar less, but because we love Rome more. 

The Secretary: Pennsylvania. 

Judge J. C. Bullitt, of Pennsylvania : Mr. Chairman, 
on behalf of the Pennsylvania delegation, I rise to say that 
they have no favorite son to present and no speech to make. 

The Secretary: Rhode Island. 

Arnold Green, of Rhode Island; Mr. Chairman, Rhode 
Island has no name to present. 

The Secretary : South Carolina. 

George M. Trenholm, of South Carolina: Mr. Presi- 
dent, South Carolina has no name to present. The gentle- 
man from Michigan spoke for South Carolina. 

The Secretary: South Dakota. Tennessee. 

George W. Ochs, of Tennessee: Mr. Chairman, I am 
instructed by the joint voice of the Tennessee delegation to 
second the nomination of Hon. John M. Palmer, of Illinois. 

The Secretary : Texas. 

T. H. Franklin, of Texas: Mr. Chairman, Texas seconds 
the nomination of Gen. John M. Palmer, of Illinois. 

The Secretary: Utah. Vermont. 
6 



82 

"W". H. Creamer, of Vermont: Mr. Chairman, Vermont 
seconds the nomination of Gen. John M. Palmer, of Illinois. 

The Secretary: Virginia. 

S. V. Southall, of Virginia: 

Virginia regrets that she cannot honor both General Palmer and 
General Bragg. I was in the convention of 1884, when we were anxious 
about Grover Cleveland. I shall never forget the battle cry which 
General Bragg gave the Cleveland men,"We love him for the enemies 
he has made." They and the Virginia delegation and thousands and 
tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Democrats love General 
Bragg because he loved Grover Cleveland. But as we have no dual 
presidency, as they did in Rome have two Consuls, as we must select 
between these distinguished men whose names have been presented, 
Virginia thinks, in deference to the size of the electoral vote of Illinois, 
and influenced by another reason which is a compliment to General 
Bragg — that Wisconsin is certain, and that Illinois, with its twenty-four 
votes, may be doubtful — she desires to second the nomination of John M. 
Palmer, of Illinois. I desire to say, if it would lend any influence to the 
position taken by Virginia on this occasion, all of you who are Demo- 
crats, true and genuine and legitimate Democrats, not bastard Demo- 
crats, all of you know that Jefferson was born, lived and died and was 
buried in Virginia. The first thing I see — I live within two miles of 
Monticello, just at its foot — when I look out of the eastern windows of 
my home, the first thing that my eyes light upon is the glorious sun in 
the heavens and the tomb of the illustrious son of Virginia. 

We who think that, politically, we are lineal descendants of Thomas 
Jefferson are here for the purpose of rescuing the ark of our political 
faith, which has been surrendered to the heathen and Populist and the 
traitors that misrepresented us at Chicago. I know but one difference 
between Chicago and St. Louis. At St. Louis they passed a Populistic 
platform, full of Populistic follies, but at Chicago to the follies of the 
Populistic platform at St. Louis they added the crime of stealing the 
Democratic name. [Applause.] That is what we want to correct, and 
I believe that is what we will correct. I do not agree with one of the 
gentlemen who addressed you, that there is no chance for the election 
of a third ticket. [Applause.] I am so extremely young and emotion- 
less that I believe others will say I am kindly disposed. I hope I am a 
magnanimous man, but as far as I am concerned, though I have heard 
it opposed by some, if Bryan will come down, and he and his followers 
will return on or before the 15th of October, I am in favor of receiving 
them. That, I think, is rather a burning question now, whether they 
shall be received, whether we shall put rings upon their fingers and 
give each of them the fatted calf." [Applause.] 

The Chairman: The Secretary will proceed. 

The Secretary: Washington. 



83 

Hugh C. Wallace, of Washington: Mr. Chairman, in 
behalf of the State of Washington, I second the nomination 
of General Palmer. (Applause.) 

The Secretary 5 West Virginia: 

Alfred Caldwell, of West Virginia: Mr. Chairman, on 
behalf of the State of West Virginia, we thank you for the 
opportunity to vote for the nominee of this Convention, and 
we are proud of having voted for the platform of principles 
just adopted by this Convention; but West Virginia has no 
candidate to present. 

The Secretary: Wisconsin. Wyoming. Mr. Chair- 
man, that completes the roll. 

The Chairman: The Secretary will call the State of Illi- 
nois, which was passed in the regular roll-call. 

The Secretary: Illinois. 

John C. Black, of Illinois: Mr. President, when the 
State of Illinois was reached on the regular roll-call, it asked 
that it might be temporarily passed. Now the State of Illi- 
nois asks the indulgence of this Convention to be called and 
to be permitted to make a statement by Judge Thomas A. 
Moran. 

The Chairman: The Chair recognizes Judge Thomas 
A. Moran, of Illinois. 

Judge Thomas A. Moran, of Illinois: 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention — We only break 
silence now to explain to you why, during the progress of this after- 
noon's session of this Convention, Illinois has been silent so long. We 
have been silent, gentlemen, because our lips were sealed by the com- 
mand of the Hon. John. M. Palmer, of Illinois. [Applause.] It has 
been our conviction since the question of the candidacy of this Conven- 
tion has been mooted that John M. Palmer was the man above all other 
men in the United States that filled the eye and ear with satisfaction 
as the proper candidate of this Convention. [Applause.] But we have 
been forbidden to say so by that man, who is as modest and retiring as 
he is great. [Applause.] And now we speak what we have to say with- 
out his permission or consent. 

When we hear State after State in this Convention proclaiming the 
same conviction that we have held from the first, we cannot longer 



84 



restrain our voices [applause], but must unite with you in selecting the 
Hon. John M. Palmer as the standard-bearing nominee of this Conven- 
tion. [Applause.] In his selection you will honor Illinois, and Illinois 
is one at least, if not, indeed, the true battle-field where this election 
is to be decided. [Applause.] 

There is but one issue in this campaign. Platforms may contain 
declarations and resolutions, but it is the habit of the American people 
and of free people everywhere to settle one political issue at a time. 
[Applause and cries of "Good."] The issue in this campaign is the issue 
between sound money and a depreciated currency; and in John M. 
Palmer you have a man whose political life has been devoted, whenever 
the question was to the front, to the defense of sound money against 
all sorts of depreciated currency or of fiat paper or fiat money by the 
government. [Applause.] In John M. Palmer you have upon this 
question a platform. [Applause.] You need no word. He stands in 
Illinois for sound money as against fiatism, greenbackism and free 
silver, and there he has stood during all the days of his political life. 
[Applause.] 

We are, by the circumstances of this campaign, put in temporary 
alliance upon this question with the candidates of the Republican party. 
We can see in this campaign but one issue, but, unfortunately, the Re- 
publicans, who are our temporary allies upon this issue, see in this 
campaign two issues. They see in this campaign the issue of high 
protection. But that issue, gentlemen of the Convention, was settled in 
this country four years ago [applause], and we can never have it 
brought to the front again; and the idea that there are in this cam- 
paign two issues arises from political confusion or from political intoxi- 
cation. The position of the Republican party makes me commend to 
them the advice given by a Hibernian friend of mine who undertook 
to direct toward his home a friend of his who had got too much and 
was hardly able to find his way. He took him out and he said, "Mike, 
go down there to the next corner, and when you get there you will see 
two cabs; take the first one; there is but one." [Laughter.] The issue 
in this campaign is sound money, and no matter what we have put in 
this platform or what is in any other platform, that issue the American 
people will decide in this campaign, and will forever settle the question 
of free silver and give us financial peace and restore confidence and 
prosperity. 

To that mission, to lead in that battle, to lead in that fight, no man 
is better prepared, no man better qualified, than John M. Palmer. There 
is a peculiar fitness in nominating him. It was upon the soil of Illinois 
that the Democratic banner was pulled down and trailed in the dust. 
It is fitting now that when we raise this whole Democratic banner of 
pure principles again you should select the standard-bearer from the 
State of Illinois. [Applause.] Take him, and through the campaign, 
with his sturdy manhood, his straightforward common sense, his mani- 
fest, plain, old-fashioned honesty, we will travel through this cam- 
paign, if not to victory, at least we will travel with honor, with glory 
and with reputation made for ourselves and our party. [Applause.] 



85 

The Chairman: The roll of States will now be called, 
and the Chariman will announce the vote of their delega- 
tions: The gentleman from Maryland. 

Mr. Selden, of Maryland: Mr. Chairman, is a motion 
in order ? I move that Gen. John M. Palmer be nominated 
by acclamation. 

[Cries of "No," "No."] 

The Chairman: The Chair thinks the motion of the 
gentlemen from Maryland is not in order. 

James Parker, ot New Jersey : Mr. President, I rise for 
the purpose of asking a question. Concerning the fitness 
of General Palmer and concerning the fitness of General 
Bragg there is no question in any of our minds. The 
eloquent gentlemen who has just left the platform has given 
us very good reasons why General Palmer should be nomi- 
nated. The question I am going to ask is simply this — 

The Chairman: Will the gentlemen from New Jersey 
inform the Chair as to what point he is addressing himself? 

James Parker, of New Jersey: Mr. President, I am 
simply going to ask a question. 

The Chairman: Then the gentlemen will ask it. 

James Parker, of New Jersey: Mr. President, I want 
to know what assurance we have that General Palmer will 
accept this nomination. He says he will not. 

[Cries of " Yes, he will accept."] 

The Chairman: The gentlemen from New Jersey ap- 
pears to the Chair out of order. The gentlemen from New 
Jersey is out of order. 

W. B. Childers, of New Mexico: Mr. Chairman, I rise 
to a question of privilege. 

The Chairman: The gentleman from New Mexico will 
state his question of privilege. 

W. B. Childers, of New Mexico: Mr. President, the 
representatives of the Territories have come here and have 



86 

been seated in this Convention. We desire to have the 
names of the Territories called in order that they may have 
an opportunity of expressing their preferences, if they wish 
to, by making or seconding nominations; and when the roll 
is called the delegates from the Territories desire to have 
their votes recorded. 

[Voices, " That's right."] 

The Chairman: The Chair does not understand that the 
Territories have any right to nominate candidates or to 
second nominations. They can only vote. The question is 
now upon the nomination of a candidate for President of the 
United States by the National Democratic Party. The roll 
will. now be called. 

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll; and the States, 

by the chairmen of the several delegations, voted as follows : 

Alabama — Palmer, 16; Bragg, 6. New Hampshire — Palmer, 8. 

Arkansas — Palmer, 16. New Jersey — Palmer, 19; Bragg, 1. 

California — Palmer, 18. New York — Palmer, 47; Bragg, 25. 

Colorado — Palmer, 8. North Carolina — Palmer, 22. 

Connecticut — Palmer, 12. North Dakota — Palmer, 6. 

Delaware — Palmer, 6. Ohio — Palmer, 30; Bragg, 16. 

Florida — Palmer, 8. Oregon — Palmer, 4; Bragg, 4. 

Georgia — Palmer, 20; Bragg, 6. Pennsylvania — Palmer, 63; Bragg, 1. 

Illinois — Palmer, 47; Bragg, 1. Rhode Island — Palmer, 8. 

Indiana — Palmer, 30. South Carolina — Palmer, 18. 

Iowa— Palmer, 25%; Bragg, %. South Dakota — Palmer, 5; Bragg, 3. 

Kansas — Palmer, 20. Tennessee — Palmer, 21; Bragg, 3. 
Kentucky — Palmer, 14; Bragg, 12. Texas — Palmer, 31. 

Louisiana — Palmer, 16. Virginia — Palmer, 24. 

Maine — Palmer, 12. Vermont — Palmer, 8. 

Maryland — Palmer, 16. Washington — Palmer, 8. 

Massachusetts — Palmer, 30. West Virginia — Palmer, 12. 

Michigan — Palmer, 28. Wisconsin — Bragg, 24. 

Minnesota — Palmer, 15; Bragg, 3. Alaska — Palmer, 6. 

Mississippi — Palmer, 18. Arizona — Palmer, 6. 

Missouri — Palmer, 17; Bragg, 17. New Mexico — Palmer, 6. 

Montana — Palmer, 6. Oklahoma — Palmer, 6. 
Nebraska — Palmer, 8; Bragg, 8. 

Total— Palmer, 757%; Bragg, 124%. 

G. V. Gress, of Georgia: Mr. President, Georgia desires 
to change six votes from Bragg to Palmer, and cast twenty- 
six votes for Palmer. 



87 

The Chairman: Georgia changes her vote to twenty-six 
for Geueral Palmer. 

Thomas G. Jones, of Alabama: Mr. President, Alabama 
desires to change her vote from sixteen for Palmer and six 
for Bragg to twenty-two votes for Palmer. 

The Chairman: The Secretary will note the change. 
The Chair recognizes General Bragg. 

General Bragg: 

Mr. Chairman — Thanking my noble State for the honor it has done 
me in presenting my name before this distinguished body of Demo- 
crats, and those other States who have kindly given me their support, 
I think I can do myself no greater honor than at this time to move the 
unanimous nomination of General John M. Palmer, of Illinois, and I 
can assure him and his friends that I shall occupy just the same place 
toward him and toward the principles that are promulgated by this 
Convention as if I had been its leader. [Applause.] My voice and my 
figure will always be where Wisconsin has expressed her opinion that 
her sons ought to be — nearest to the flashing of the gun. 

The Chairman: General Bragg, of Wisconsin, moves 
that the rules be suspended and that General John M. Palmer, 
of Illinois, be nominated by acclamation. 

The motion was seconded. 

The Chairman: Gentlemen, you have heard the motion. 
Are you ready for the question? All those in favor of the 
suspension of the rules and the nomination of General John 
M. Palmer by acclamation will say "Aye;" contrary "No." 
There are no " Noes." The " Ayes " have it, and General John 
M. Palmer is the nominee of the National Democratic Party 
for President of these United States. [Great applause.] 

The Secretary will proceed to call the roll of States for 
nominations for Vice-President. 

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll. 

When the State of Kentucky was called — 

The Chairman: The Chair recognizes Hon. Wilbur F. 
Browder, of Kentucky. 



88 

Wilbur F. Browder, of Keutucky: 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention— In the fierce con- 
flict at Chicago, between principle upon the one side and cowardly ex- 
pediency upon the other, the Democratic party of the United States 
received at the hands of its betrayers a cruel and murderous blow; but 
that it was not mortally wounded is evidenced by this magnificent 
gathering of representative Democrats who have come from every 
section of the Union, not for the purpose of seeking or bestowing the 
emoluments of place and power, but for the purpose of entering their 
indignant protest against and of publicly renouncing their allegiance 
to that strange and revolutionary creed which that convention sent 
forth to an astounded people, and misnamed it the Democratic platform. 
That great political party, whose origin is almost coeval with the birth 
of American liberty, which took its inspiration from the Declaration of 
Independence itself, which was designed by its great founder to be the 
interpreter and defender of the Federal Constitution, the guide and 
champion of government upon this continent, that party which has 
embellished American civilization with a long line of illustrious deeds, 
from the achievements of Jefferson to the achievements of Cleveland, 
has lived too long, and has witnessed the rise and fall of too many rival 
political organizations, is the hope and refuge of too many patriotic 
lovers of liberty, to permit it to be used as the sword of Altgeld or the 
red torch of Tillmanism. [Great applause.] 

Gentlemen, those of us who realize that the fulminations of that 
convention were at war with all the traditions and principles of De- 
mocracy have assembled here to-day for the purpose of making a plat- 
form and nominating a presidential ticket which shall appeal to every 
enlightened Democrat in the land. We have, sir, stated the principles 
of our party's faith in the platform; we have nominated for the office 
of President the distinguished soldier-statesman from Illinois; and now 
I come from that dear old commonwealth which I love, and on its behalf 
ask this great Convention to place upon that platform, and by the side 
of the distinguished John M. Palmer, of Illinois, Kentucky's grand old 
man, Simon Bolivar Buckner. [Applause.] 

M. B. May, of Ohio: Mr. President, I move that the 
rules be suspended, and General Buckner be nominated by 
acclamation. 

Henry A. Bobbins, of Illinois: Mr. Chairman, the State 
ot Illinois seconds the motion to make the nomination of 
General Buckner, for Vice-President, unanimous. 

Sigourney Butler, of Massachusetts: The common- 
wealth of Massachusetts comes to the commonwealth of Ken- 
tucky and says to all that it loves the man who wore the 
gray, if he is a good man and a brave man. The Democrats 



89 



of Massachusetts come from the home of Daniel Webster to 
the home of Henry Clay, and we join in the motion to sus- 
pend the rules and nominate General Buckner by acclama- 
tion. 

The Chairman : The motion is to suspend the rules and to 
make the nomination of Simon Bolivar Buckner, for Vice- 
President of the United States, unanimous. All in favor of 
the motion will say "Aye;" those opposed "No." The 
"Ayes" have it, unanimously. I declare that Simon Bolivar 
Buckner is the nominee of the National Democratic Party for 
Vice-President, of the United States. 

James O. Broadhead, of Missouri: Mr. Chairman, I 
send to the Secretary's desk a resolution to be read, which I 
desire to offer. 

The Secretary read the resolution as follows: 

Resolved, That the National Committee shall have full power to 
arrange for the placing of the names of the candidates of the National 
Democratic Party upon the ballots in the respective States in the man- 
ner required by the election laws of said States; that said committee 
shall have power to fill all vacancies and arrange for the notification of 
the candidates nominated by this Convention, and generally to exercise 
the powers of this Convention after the adjournment thereof. 

James O. Broadhead, of Missouri: Mr. President, I 
move the adoption of the resolution. 

The motion was seconded. 

The Chairman: Gentlemen, you have heard the motion 
of the gentleman from Missouri. All those is favor of the 
adoption of the resolution will say "Aye;" contrary "No." 
The "Ayes" seem to have it. The "Ayes" have it, and the 
resolution is adopted. 

George M. Davie, of Kentucky: Mr. President, I move 
the adoption of the resolution which I send to the Secre- 
tary's desk to be read. 

The Secretary read the resolution as follows: 

Resolved, That the thanks of this Convention are tendered to our 
Temporary National Committee and our Temporary National Executive 
Committee for their great and wise work for the Democratic party. 



90 

The motion was seconded. 

The Chairman: All those in favor of the adoption oi 
the resolution will say "Aye;" opposed "No." The "Ayes" 
seem to have it. The "Ayes" have it, and the resolution is 
adopted. 

James H. Eckels, of Illinois: Mr. President, I desire to 

tender the following resolution and move its adoption. 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Democratic Convention here as- 
sembled are tendered to the people of the city of Indianapolis for the 
manner of entertainment of this Convention. 

The motion was seconded. 

The Chairman: All in favor of the adoption of the 
resolution offered by Mr. Eckels will say "Aye;" those op- 
posed "No." The "Ayes" have it, and the resolution is 
adopted. 

Randolph Stalnaker, of West Virginia: Mr. Chair- 
man, do you know what the Governor of North Carolina 
said to the Governor of South Carolina? I think it is about 
time. [Great laughter.] 

The Secretary: Gentlemen of the Convention, I am in- 
structed to announce that there will be a meeting of the 
members of the new National Committee immediately upon 
adjournment, at Room 38 of the Grand Hotel. 

George W. Ochs, of Tennessee: I move that we adjourn, 

sine die. 

The motion was seconded. 

The Chairman: All in favor of the motion to adjourn 
sine die will say "Aye;" those opposed "No." The motion 
is carried (at four o'clock and eight minutes p. M.). The Con- 
vention is adjourned sine die. 



Appendix A. 



"WEDNESDAY EVENING. 



Tomlinson Hall, September 2, 1896, 
8:00 O'Clock p. M. 

J. McD. Trimble, of Missouri, in calling the meeting to 
order said: 

The meeting will please come to order. It was expected that Hon. 
W. D. Bynum, of Indiana, would call this meeting to order, but a do- 
mestic affliction has prevented his presence. This is to be regretted, 
because his patriotic and distinguished services in organizing this 
movement and bringing this Convention here are applauded through- 
out the country, and, his merits as a citizen and virtues as a man are 
appreciated in this, the city of his residence. [Applause.] 

The program of the evening has been settled and determined, 
and to the end that it may be carried out in an orderly manner, no calls 
for speeches other than those arranged for will be heeded. The pro- 
gram will not be departed from. The addresses which will be delivered 
to you this evening will become a part of the history of this Republic. 
The Convention now in session in this city is making history of which 
posterity will be proud. [Applause.] 

We are forming a new organization to maintain old doctrines. We 
are enlisting a new army to carry an old flag [applause] ; we are build- 
ing a new temple where all the devotees of true Democracy may wor- 
ship at their accustomed shrine [applause]; and in doing this we are 
conscious that we are rendering a patriotic duty in maintaining the su- 
premacy of the law and the integrity of our currency. [Applause.] 
Those who are participating in this Convention have no hope of reward 
other than that which inures to the public at large, but they are con- 
scious that the advocacy of such a cause as this is its own compensation, 
even as virtue is its own reward. [Applause.] 

My fellow-citizens, it is not more money that we need in this coun- 
try. The greater part of what we have is lying idle and unemployed, 
and so it will remain idle until the fear that upon its reappearance it will 
be shorn of half its value by the hand of repudiation shall have been 
removed. [Applause.] Remove the cause which drove it into hiding, 
and it will reappear and enter upon the discharge of its accustomed 
functions, and not until then. [Applause.] It is not a lower standard 
of money that we need, but a higher standard of integrity and patriot- 
ism. [Applause.] We want it known at home and abroad that when 
an American citizen makes a contract he expects to keep it [applause]; 

(93) 



94 



that when he signs a note he expects to pay it in full, and that his 
government will neither enable nor encourage him in paying it one-half 
in money and the other half in fiat legislation. [Applause.] 

This Convention assembled here stands for that tariff policy which 
will give to our factories and to our farms a world-wide market [ap- 
plause], and for that financial policy which will give to our commerce 
a world-wide dollar. [Applause.] It stands for a flag that will be 
respected upon the sea, and a dollar that will be accepted on every 
shore. [Applause.] 

Gentlemen, in discharging the duties which were intended for Mr. 
Bynum, allow me to say that the honors which were intended for him 
have fallen upon me as a compliment to the gallant Democrats of Mis- 
souri who have chosen me as their standard-bearer; and to the ends of 
a safe government and a sound currency the addresses of the evening 
will be directed. 

I now have the pleasure, as well as the honor, fellow-citizens, of 
introducing to you a distinguished citizen of New York, who will act 
as chairman of the meeting and who will address you. I refer to Hon. 
John R. Fellows. [Applause.] 

Col. John E. Fellows, of New York: 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-Democrats: 

The splendid enthusiasm which characterizes the gathering to-night 
is but the visible expression of a sentiment which is surging in the 
breast of hundreds of thousands of Democrats all over this great Re- 
public. [Applause.] It had magnificent demonstration in that majestic 
gathering which convened in the Auditorium Hall on the 4th day of 
last July to protest against the action then contemplated and dreaded, 
and the shadows which gathered around us then have deepened 
and darkened greatly since. Now we are called upon to confront a 
peril which then but threatened, but by the action of that convention 
was crystalized into a declaration and a purpose constituting a menace 
which seriously imperils individual happiness and the prosperity of our 
beloved country. [Applause.] 

We have gathered in convention in this city now to declare that 
that peril shall never become a reality to this land. [Applause.] The 
one justification we have for assembling here is that we are Democrats. 
[Applause.] And to sustain the action and purposes of the Chicago 
convention is treason to Democracy. [Applause and cries of "Good."] 
I am obedient to the will of the majority in so far as a majority has 
a right to control. [Applause.] I am in favor of regularity in so far 
as regularity has any just scope or right of action [applause], but regu- 
larity deals with forms and with methods alone, and not with princi- 
ples. I deny the right of any assemblage of men, in whatever official 
garb they may appear or under whatever banner they may array them- 
selves, to declare to me what is Democracy or to prescribe for me new 
forms, new teachings of Democracy. [Applause.] We meet from time 



95 



to time in our conventions to reproclaim old doctrines, not to create new- 
ones. 

Democracy was born before national conventions were. It would 
survive if national conventions were never held. [Applause.] 

National conventions assemble at appropriate periods for the pur- 
pose of proclaiming the old faith, of stimulating to higher endeavor 
and renewed action, the purposes and the faith which we have cherished 
all our lives. 

Sirs, would it have been competent for the Democratic party, by 
the mere force of a majority, under the forms of regularity, to have as- 
sembled at Chicago and have adopted the platform of a few weeks be- 
fore at St. Louis, upon which the Republican candidate is now standing? 
Would that have been accepted as Democracy? Must we take every- 
thing for the faith which the fathers left us that may be declared from 
time to time by the changing caprices of the people? I have been ac- 
customed to believe that Democracy was something more than a name. 
[Great applause.] 

I believe it now. Let those who will, capture the flag and carry 
away the legends engraved upon it, so they leave to me the principles 
upon which my party was built. I remain the Democrat, and they are 
the bolters. [Great applause.] 

New York, as did many other States, met in last June in State con- 
vention and declared what it believed Democracy was. It was but a 
renewed proclamation of the doctrine and creed that I had listened to 
and believed in through all the years of my manhood. It spoke from no 
strange lips and proclaimed no new faith. It declared that the action 
then contemplated and afterward perpetrated was dishonest and dis- 
honorable, and the repudiation of all that was known as Democracy. 
[Applause.] We went to Chicago and voted as one man against their 
platform, and then as a unit refused to have anything more to do with 
the action of that convention. I remain to-night where the voice of 
New York Democracy placed me in June last, and that which flourished 
so fairly amid the roses of that month took root with me too deep to 
wither and fade in the heat of the August sun. 

I shall not detain you long, because there are a number of gentle- 
men from different States of the Union, representing all of its geo- 
graphical divisions, to whom you will be glad to listen. [Voices: 
"Go on."] 

Mine is but the function of the presiding officer, to present others 
whom I am sure will interest you more; but there are one or two things 
which I desire to say. 

It will be my privilege, after this Convention shall have accom- 
plished its work and laid upon each one of us who are still true to the 
old faith the obligations of duty that then we will be glad to dis- 
charge — it will be my privilege, as it has in the past, to go into a great 
many of the States of this Union and again to repeat that which for 
more than thirty years I have been somewhat accustomed to say to 
audiences of Democrats. I repudiate absolutely, in all of its parts, in 
its detail and the entirety of its hideousness, the platform and the can- 



96 

didates of Chicago. [Applause.] If that was Democracy, then all my 
life I have been deceived. But I am not willing now in my old age to 
confess that I have gone wrong through the enthusiasm of my young 
life and the maturer judgment of riper years, and kneel now on a peni- 
tent's knee and declare mea culpa ! mea culpa ! in the presence of Alt- 
geld and Tillman as father confessors. [Great applause.] 

I am not willing that the party and its principles should be mur- 
dered upon any kind of a scaffold. I am not so esthetic in my tastes 
as the gentleman from Nebraska, and, if I am to be butchered, I care but 
little for the embellishments of the instrument or where the murder is 
committed. [Great applause.] 

I believe that it comports rather more with my somewhat aristo- 
cratic tastes, if I am to be killed at all, to have it done upon a cross of 
gold rather than on one of cheaper and baser material. [Applause.] 
But it is the fact of crucifixion at all for my party against which I 
stand here to protest. I am unwilling to be crucified between these 
twin thieves of sectionalism and repudiation [great applause], neither 
of which seems to be in any repentant mood or stands any chance for 
salvation. [Applause.] 

The Democratic party was founded a great many years ago in fixed 
and settled principles; they remain unchanging, unchangeable. I have 
been accustomed to look at Democracy as one does at a fixed star, 
knowing that it was secure in its place, and that it yielded always a 
serene and constant light. Sometimes, to be sure, it was obscured by 
darkness; sometimes it was veiled by clouds; but it left to us always 
the confident assurance that when these had passed there, steady in its 
place, and resplendent in its lustre, it would shine down upon us as it 
had through all the years of the past. [Applause.] 

Now, I am told that the will of the majority, which may change 
from year to year, which may proclaim for the free coinage of silver 
to-day and denounce it in the succeeding convention, and then again 
change, is to fix for me the principles of Democracy by which my po- 
litical life is to be guided and governed. I deny that right on the part 
of any convention, and if the convention assembled at Chicago, regular 
in form, clothed in the official uniform that we had placed upon them, 
repudiated the principles of the fathers and departed from the old 
teachings of Democracy, they can rightfully claim your allegiance and 
mine, my brethren, no longer. [Applause.] 

We remain where our faith placed us, constant to the party. I be- 
lieve that it is a historical fact that Benedict Arnold conducted all the 
preliminary negotiations for the surrender of the fortress at West Point, 
while wearing the official title of an American general, and with the 
American uniform upon his back. [Applause.] The British army at 
that time required regularity before they would treat with the gentle- 
man. Now, the mere arraying of banners, the mere parading of titles, 
cannot bind me and should bind no one to an assemblage which denies 
to us the faith that we have learned to believe in and to trust, and if 
Chicago did that, then Chicago and the Democratic party separated and 
parted company. [Applause.] What have they done, then? I shall 



97 



not trouble you with a discussion of that which is the vital and impor- 
tant question in this campaign, suffice it to say, since that will be 
treated of fully by others. Suffice it to say mat upon that question they 
proclaimed a doctrine hitherto unknown in Democratic councils and 
novel throughout all enlightened earth. Never in history before, in any 
epoch of the world's career, in any nation of earth, was there so bold 
attempt made, so bold intent proclaimed, of coining the two metals 
which form the principal currency of enlightened earth upon a mint 
ratio which had no relation whatever to the commercial value of the 
commodities to be coined. [Applause.] 

This is absolutely new in the world, and whether it shall succeed 
is an experiment yet to be tried. Heretofore, when we have undertaken 
to fix a mint ratio for the coinage of the yellow and white metals, the 
endeavors of our wise men have been to ascertain what was the com- 
mercial ratio of these two commodities in the markets of the world. 
So, at the first, great opposing leaders of the parties of that day, Jef- 
ferson and Hamilton, united in an endeavor to ascertain at what ratio 
commercially gold and silver stood in the world's market. They ascer- 
tained it was about 15 to 1. One pound of gold was the equivalent 
of fifteen pounds of the white metal, and they opened their mints and 
coined it at that ratio, and because they found they had made but the 
slightest perceptible difference in the value of these two metals, one 
immediately went out of circulation as rapidly as it came coined from 
the mint; it never entered the channels of trade or assisted in carrying 
on any business. The necessity arose for changing the standard — the 
ratio — and they fixed it at 16 to 1, and again it was ascertained that by 
-a fraction merely they had undervalued one of the metals, and that which 
was the superior metal again passed for years out of our his- 
tory and left only the other with which to transact our busi- 
ness; and never for one moment of the nation's life did the 
coins that were issued from the mint at that ratio pass together into the 
circulating medium of this country and for the transaction of its busi- 
ness. Now it is proclaimed that where one pound of gold in South 
Africa, in Bombay, in Calcutta, in any mart in Europe or in the United 
States will purchase nearly thirty-two pounds of silver, that that silver 
shall be taken and minted at the ratio of 16 to 1, doubling, nearly, its 
mint value above its commercial value, and that there shall be coined 
dollars which shall bear upon their face the stamp of the United States 
of America that they are worth one hundred cents, when there are 
forty-seven cents of actual lying in the declaration. 

And above it if to be placed the legend, "In God we trust." I pre- 
sume that this can only have this meaning: that the silver in the dollar 
is worth fifty-thre'e cents in the markets of the earth, and we are to 
trust to God to get the other forty-seven cents. [Applause.] This doc- 
trine, I state, is absolutely novel. It never was undertaken by any 
nation upon earth before, and we have a right to ask this -gentleman 
who is masquerading in Democratic clothing through the country now, 
with Popocratic badges attached— we have a right to ask him what 
will happen if the coinage of this commodity at this ratio does not re- 

7 



98 



store it to the value they claim for it. Then what will happen? Why,- 
the history of all the world will repeat itself. After that the inferior 
coin will remain as the only one in circulation, and the gold, to the 
extent of $600,000,000, now used as currency in this land will, as in a 
breath, disappear from the face of the land. That will be the inevitable 
result if the thing is not accomplished which these men desire should 
be, and which the history of metallic coinage in all the ages informs us 
never can occur. They had a better appreciation of the value of silver 
with relation to the markets nineteen hundred years ago than they 
have now. 

These men who are betraying the party and betraying the country 
ought to turn back for something of instruction to the one from whom 
they get their first great lesson in betrayal. He never would have stood 
by the Chicago ratio. He knew better the market value of silver. He 
required thirty pieces of silver for one betrayal, and you are willing to 
do it for sixteen. [Applause.] We have a right to ask this peculiar 
thing which is going through the land now with a Populist head, all 
covered over with silver scales, with a dragon's tail, divided into twa 
sections, one labeled Sewall and the other Watson [laughter], spouting 
repudiation and proclaiming that we, who stand by the faith of the 
fathers, are apostates to the party — we have a right to ask of him some 
questions. He is not alone the candidate of a party that labeled itself 
Democratic; he is the candidate also of a party that openly pro- 
claimed itself Populistic. He was nominated with great enthusiasm; 
he was declared to be of their own sort; they cling to him to-day. 

There is too much of Democracy amid the murmur of the pines for 
them to adopt the Maine candidate, and they turn to another ac- 
knowledged exponent of their faith for the second place upon- 
their ticket; and we have the right to ask Mr. Bryan as to 
whether he indorses the action of this other convention which 
has nominated him. He has not declined it. He has uttered 
no word, he has not given utterance to an expression that tells 
you or me as to whether he stands upon that platform or not. He 
stands there as its candidate. Does he adopt its doctrines? We have a 
right to know that, at least, before he can appeal to any Democrat with 
confidence to give him his support. What is that doctrine ? Let me read 
one or two expressions from their platform: "We demand a national 
currency, sure and sound, issued by the general government only, with- 
out the intervention of banks of issue. We demand that it shall be a 
full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that there shall 
be such a just, equitable and sufficient quantity distributed direct to the 
people as will enable them to conduct their business affairs." 

This is a very plain, bold proclamation for fiat money, the govern- 
ment to issue its paper bills, based upon nothing, and issue them in such 
quantities as the clamor of the mob may demand, and pay them directly 
from the government treasury depots to the people, "as the needs of 
business require." Do you approve of that, Mr. Bryan? Yet the party 
that adopted that platform made you their candidate for President with 
exultant acclamation. They demand that the government shall take* 



99 



control of railroad lines and operate them by their own agents; that 
they shall do the same with the telegraph lines. We ask Mr. Bryan if 
he adopts that doctrine of his Populistic friends, pure paternalism, a 
government to make money and hand it out to the people at their bid- 
ding; a government to take control of these great agencies of 
transportation and these lines which transmit the thoughts of 
men throughout the world and control them by their own agents, 
their political stipendiaries, to be changed with changing par- 
ties, and to put all this vast machinery of the commerce of the world 
in the keeping and clamor of parties and to the disposition of factions 
in our land. Does Mr. Bryan approve that? He must tell us that be- 
fore, with any confidence, he can come before us and ask us for our 
vote, and yet with Watson and Sewall, the two tails of the dragon spit- 
ting fire and blood at each other until it covers the land — with these 
two men, the bitterest enemies, Bryan is going through the country 
talking Democracy, keeping silent as to Populism, and out of that 
double-headed thing trying to administer political aliment sufficient 
for the two caudal attachments which he drags along with him. 
[Laughter.] 

I doubt if it can be successfully done. I do not believe the awak- 
ened sentiments of the country will justify his candidacy. I have faittL 
in the American people. [Applause.] Sometimes the storms of passion 
surge over the land and we are swept for a little space from secure 
moorings, but after awhile the sober second thought regains its sway 
and domination. The heart of the American people is as sound and 
good as gold, and all they desire to know is what is right, and then 
they will do what is right [applause], and this calamity will be averted. 
Not only that which is threatened by a change of our standard and the 
creation of an absolutely new measurement of value, but that which 
even more gravely threatens the integrity of our institutions. Thev 
dare to proclaim, as you were told in the Convention to-day, that the 
government of the United States has no right to step into Indiana and 
enforce its own laws when they are being violated; that it has no right 
in the interest of the commonwealth of our Republic to see that the 
laws which sway the entire Republic and have operation over every 
individual are peaceably and quietly submitted to. Why, what does it 
mean? It was a rebuke to that great man who never in all his illus- 
trious career did an act which will be remembered so gratefully as that 
when he checked the violence and put down disorder in the city of 
Chicago. [Applause.] What had happened? A mob had taken pos- 
session of the railroads, had stopped the passage of trains, had ob- 
structed the mails. What did that mean to us? Had it no significance 
outside of the limit of Illinois? Why, there were hundreds of thou- 
sands of letters in process of transmission to different parts of the 
country, under the protection of the United States. There were mes- 
sages of hope and cheer and love; there were messages of consolation 
and of sympathy; there were messages that conveyed physical relief, 
and financial assistance to thousands throughout the land. They 
reached the citizens of Masachusetts, of South Carolina, of every State 
in the broad Republic. 



100 



They were stopped by violence. The officials of the State of Illinois 
were silent, were indifferent, or worse. And then Washington spoke, 
and from the lips of Cleveland [applause] proclaimed that wherever 
that flag waved the government of the United States was supreme, and 
put down that violence and allowed these messages to come to you and 
to myself. 

Chicago declared in its platform that it was a crime; that if their 
candidate is elected such crimes shall no longer be committed. It met 
the approval of Altgeld; it met the approval of Tillman, but I dare to 
say, in the presence of this body of free men and free women, that ten 
millions of Americans, with all they have to sacrifice, their exertions, 
their blood, their lives, stand behind any American President to make 
that declaration good. [Immense applause.] We will have no such un- 
American doctrine as that. 

Your prairies here in the West are broad and far-reaching. They 
stretch toward the setting sun. Our land is capacious and fruitful; her 
welcome to the suffering of all the world is generous and full, but broad 
as is our land, able as it is to satisfy every want and every longing, I 
say here, in the name of the free men of this Republic, that, generous 
as is the Republic and warm as is its welcome, we have no room save 
in the safe security of our dungeons or on the steps of our scaffolds 
for those who come here to break down the fabric of our laws. [Great 
applause.] 

With us liberty has no meaning or no significance except as it 
walks to the accomplishment of its sublime purpose hand in hand with 
law. That the American people will forever proclaim. We do not like 
their attack upon our judiciary. It is un-Democratic. I had supposed 
that there was one thing fixed and permanent. The people were al- 
lowed at frequently recurring periods to elect their other officers, the 
President once in four years, members of Congress once in two years 
in the lower branch and in the upper branch once in six years, but they 
said a President may become a usurper; Congress, so frequently 
changing, may become the creature of the passions of the hour, be filled 
with ideas which are prejudicial to the security of the Republic. They 
could not do much harm within the short limitation of their service, 
but they said, in order to prevent usurpation upon the one hand or law- 
lessness and license upon the other, we will fix a third department of 
our government and make that perpetual; their tenure shall be for life 
or during good behavior; they are not subject to the changing caprices 
of the multitude; they may not be the victims of each recurring elec- 
tion; they are steady, serene, secure, unawed by clamor, unswayed by 
prejudice; their eyes are fixed upon the great chart of our liberty — the 
Constitution of the United States — and they are placed as the inter- 
preters of that alone. They say to the President: "You shall not do 
this thing; it is beyond the limit of your power." And he has no au- 
thority to do it. They say to Congress: "Your act is null and void; it 
transgresses the written law; it is beyond the Constitution." And the 
enactment loses all force. 



101 



There is our final security. Leave that grand tribunal as the fathers 
hxed it, not subject to the whims and passions of men. Leave it there, 
with its eyes fixed not upon the one party nor upon the other, not 
catching inspiration from political banners, not moved by the huzzas 
of the crowd, but looking at the Constitution and reading its direction, 
and then proclaiming it for the guidance of the people. Give us that, 
preserve to us that, and we can stand a wicked Congress or a usurper 
as a President, and be secure in the preservation and maintenance of 
our liberties. [Applause.] 

But this convention which assumed to be Democratic has dared to 
say that it would change the Supreme Court of the United States to 
meet the wishes, from time to time, of the people. Take that prop from 
under us, and we are poor as a people, indeed, and so every patriotic 
impulse, every lofty purpose, every aspiration we have for the good of 
our beloved land, tells us to gird ourselves for another battle for the 
destruction of the most dangerous heresy that has ever threatened our 
social, financial or political system. [Applause.] We are here in splen- 
did array. We know our duty, and we shall fearlessly perform it. We 
will not borrow our metaphors from a Massachusetts Republican Con- 
gressman; we shall not borrow our platform from Ocala; we will pro- 
nounce Democratic sentiments from true Democratic lips, coined by 
Democratic brains and having the approval of Democratic conscience 
[applause]; then we will go out to battle, and we shall surely win. 

Patriotism survives; the country remains; the children are true to 
the faith of their fathers. God lives and our cause shall triumph. The 
billows will roll; the storm be viclent; for a long time we shall be tossed 
to and fro upon the crest of the billows; but by and by it will subside r 
the hand of patriotic effort will be stretched over the seething waters 
and bid them "Peace, be still." And then again in our political skies 
the bow, the sign of the new covenant, shall stretch and span the whole 
heavens. On its bright arch of crimson and gold there shall glow, in 
letters of imperishable light, the cheering assurance, the faith fashioned 
by the wisdom of the fathers, preserved by the integrity of the son». 
shall be continued unto you and your children forever and forever. 

Now, gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce to you, as the first 
speaker, Hon. Louis R. Ehrich, of Colorado, who will address you ex- 
clusively upon the silver question. 

SPEECH OF LOUIS R. EHRICH. 

I have come to this Convention against the advice and entreaty of 
many friends. They tell me that public opinion is much inflamed in my 
State. It is true. Yet in its intelligence and in its manhood the State 
of Colorado has not descended to a level where it will not tolerate and 
respect the frank, free expression of honest opinion. I am not afraid. 
There is only one thing in this wide universe which I fear, and that is 
to have my conscience whispering to me: "Thou art a coward." The 
quality which in the last twenty years has, above all others, been lack- 



102 



ing in these United States, and to the lack of which our present troubles 
are directly traceable, is moral courage. As indicative of the birth of a 
more courageous public spirit; as revealing to the nation a body of men 
who so clearly put patriotic duty above political self-interest, who so 
evidently rank fealty to their country higher than allegiance to their 
party, this Convention — to thinking, loyal Americans — will stand out 
as the most promising and most inspiring gathering since the civil war. 
[Applause.] 

The principal issue on which the political battle centers is the finan- 
cial issue. We are confronted with the strangest of conditions. In the 
last quarter of a century, excluding the United States, sixteen nations 
of the world have limited the coinage of silver. They comprise the 
most intelligent nations on this earth, both monarchies and republics. 
They hold within their borders millions of men who till the soil, and 
who, like our own farmers, must compete, with the price of their prod- 
ucts, in the markets of the world. They include among their citizens 
millions of men who stand in the relation of debtor and creditor. They 
enjoy the experience of centuries of civilization. They are not lacking 
in the love for humanity. Their students of financial science are the 
recognized world leaders. The international economic conditions are 
the same for them as for us. And yet not in a single one of all these 
nations has there arisen a "free and unlimited silver" party. Men have 
proposed international bimetallism, but on the whole continent of Eu- 
rope the thought has not entered into a single soul of publicly advo- 
cating that one of these nations should, alone and independently, open 
its mints to the unrestricted coinage of silver. Is it not strange, pass- 
ing strange, that this new light in financial science should have escaped 
all the brains of Europe, should have eluded all the trained thinkers 
of the more mature civilization of the Eastern section of our own coun- 
try, and should have revealed itself in the silver camps of the West, on 
the plains of Missouri and_ in the valley of the Platte ? Must there not 
have been some peculiar influences which injected this menacing ques- 
tion into American political life? 

Before grappling with the silver question, let me say a word con- 
cerning myself — and I say it not that it can have the slightest public 
interest, excepting as I represent a Western type, and as it makes clear 
the standpoint from which I have investigated this question. I am not 
a banker. I own large interests in silver mines. No living soul owes 
me a mortgage. [Applause.] On the contrary, ten years ago, im- 
pressed with the wonderful natural resources of the Rocky mountain 
region, and relying on the financial sanity of my fellow-citizens, I in- 
vested my entire capital in the far Western States. The continued 
silver agitation has made my properties unsalable. I have seen the tide 
of debt rising slowly at first, but ever more rapidly, and theatening in 
time to engulf me. No one can sympathize with the debtor more keenly 
than myself. I see my way out however, not by urging this nation into 
the wildest and most reckless financial experiment since the days of the 
South Sea Bubble — not by throwing this government into the hands of 
a Populist receiver and compromising public and private debts on a 



103 

basis of fifty cents on the dollar— but rather in helping to mould public 
opinion and legislation so that we can again beget full confidence in 
the safety and in the stability of our monetary system, so that capital 
will feel safe to emerge, and that, by the energetic many-millionfold 
interchange of human effort, there will come again a market for prop- 
erty and securities which will enable the debtor to repay the creditor 
to the uttermost farthing with an honest one-hundred-cent dollar. 
[Applause.] 

BIRTH OF THE SILVER QUESTION. 

How, then, was the silver question born in the United States? 
What were the peculiar influences which brought it into life? Let us 
go back to the year 1867. Representatives of all the leading nations 
were assembled in Paris in monetary conference. This question was 
submitted: Is the coincidence of monetary types "attainable on the 
basis and condition of adopting the exclusive gold standard, leaving 
each State the liberty to keep its silver standard temporarily?" The 
vote in favor of this proposition was unanimous. If the demonetization 
of silver was a great conspiracy, surely the conspirators were acting 
in a manner singularly open and unconcealed. Here was a world-wide 
notice, six years before 1873, that the principal nations of the world, 
including the United States, were unanimously in favor of the exclusive 
gold standard. 

Early the next year, January 6, 1868, Senator Sherman introduced 
a bill in the Senate on "International Coinage," in which were contained 
provisions for the discontinuance of the silver dollar, for the limitation 
of silver as legal tender to payments of ten dollars, and for the adoption 
of the exclusive gold standard. It was a very short bill. The Senate 
finance committee reported on this bill June 9, 1868. Senator Morgan, 
of New York, presented the minority report, in which objection was 
urged to changing the number of grains in the gold dollar, and an argu- 
ment presented for the use of silver with Asiatic countries. The ma- 
jority report, presented by Senator Sherman, contains two sentences 
which throw the most piercing searchlight on American public senti- 
ment of that time. He says: "The United States is the great gold- 
producing country of the world, now producing more than all other 
nations combined, and with a capacity for future production almost 
without limit. * * * The single standard of gold is an American 
idea, yielded reluctantly by Prance and other countries, where silver is 
the chief standard of value." Of these reports five thousand copies were 
printed for the use of the Senate, and, as Senator Stewart's proportion 
was seventy-eight copies, it is presumable that he must have learned 
what the words "gold standard" meant. [Applause.] 

On April 25, 1870, the now famous bill, which provided for the de- 
monetization of silver, was transmitted to the Senate by Mr. Boutwell, 
Secretary of the Treasury. „I cannot devote the time nor will I insult 
your intelligence in showing that there was absolutely no concealment 
in the passage of this demonetization act of 1873. The clear facts are 
that this bill was two years and ten months before Congress; that it 



104 

was debated during five sessions; that the debates cover one hundred 
and forty-eight pages of the Congressional Record; that reports of 
monetary experts distinctly referring to the silver demonetization were 
laid before Congress; that in 1873 we had practically been on a gold 
standard since 1837; that in that year there were Americans in middle 
life who had never even seen a silver dollar, and that, as the Comptroller 
of the Currency expressed it in his report of 1876, "the coinage act of 
1873 simply registered in the form of a statute what had been really 
the unwritten law of the land for forty years." 

I desire, rather, to call attention to what happened immediately 
after the passage of the so-called silver demonetization act. It became 
a law February 12, 1873. The next Congress convened December 1st of 
the same year. The principal silver leaders, who now declare that they 
did not know that silver had been demonetized nine months before, 
were members of that Forty-third Congress. Mr. Bland was in the 
House; Messrs. Jones and Stewart were members of the Senate. If the 
demonetization act was a conspiracy, it would seem natural that the 
conspirators would keep very "mum" on the subject. Yet immediately 
upon the assembling of Congress there was distributed the report Qf 
the Director of the Mint, dated November 1, 1873, in which, under the 
headline, "History of the Coinage," referring to the act of February 12, 
he says: "The coinage act, in effect, abolished the silver dollar of H2y z 
grains troy and declared the gold dollar of 25.8 grains, nine-tenths fine,, 
the unit of value, and thus legally established gold as the sole standard 
or measure of value." Again, under the heading, in large capital let- 
ters, "Gold the Standard or Measure of Value; Silver Subsidiary," 
speaking of the experience with silver, he says: "In view of the fore- 
going facts, it is evident that Congress acted wisely in establishing gold 
as the sole standard of value." Not a word of protest from the silver 
triumvirate! Not an exclamation of surprise! [Applause.] 

On December 1, 1873, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Richardson, 
transmitted his report, in which, speaking of redeeming the worn silver 
coins, he says: '"This is done in other countries which, like ours, have 
adopted the gold standard and demonetized silver." Again no protest! 
It must be remembered that this Forty-third Congress was passion- 
ately interested in the subjects of currency and finance. The ques- 
tions which agitated the public mind were the resumption of specie 
payments, free banking and greenback inflation. The debates covered 
hundreds of pages. No one can read them without realizing that, be- 
yond question, every one in Congress was fully informed as to our 
monetary basis. On December 18, 1873, Senator Morton, of Indiana, 
speaking of the resumption of specie payments, said: "I recognize gold 
as the standard of value that we are bound to come back to." On Jan- 
uary 13, 1874, Senator Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, said: "The world 
standard of value is gold, and every Senator knows it." On January 14th 
Senator Schurz said: "The inscription of the legal tender note is: 
'The United States will pay to the bearer one dollar.' We all agree that 
it means one dollar in gold coin of the United States." On January 16th 
the arch-conspirator, Senator Sherman, said: "At the Paris Monetary 



105 



Congress, held in 1887, which I had the honor to attend, the delegates 
of twenty nations represented agreed to recommend gold alone as the 
standard of value. The United States and nearly all the commercial 
nations have adopted this standard." 

Is it reasonable to suppose that, in the face of such reports and 
speeches, a live man could have occupied his seat in the House or Sen- 
ate of that year without knowing that silver had been demonetized? 
And when such men tell us that they did not discover it until some 
years thereafter, are we not prompted to lose all patience and to ex- 
claim, with Falstaff, "Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!" 
[Applause.] 

But now let me quote very briefly from the remarkable speeches 
of Senators Stewart and Jones. As early as January 13, 1874, Mr. Stew- 
art said: "There is nothing so satisfactory as the real measure of 
value — gold." February 20th he says: "Gold is the universal standard 
of the world. Every one knows what a dollar in gold is worth." On 
June 11, 1874, referring, doubtless, to the Paris conference, he says: 
"You must come to the same conclusion that all other people have, that 
gold is recognized as the universal standard of value." On April 1, 
1874, Senator Jones said: "I believe the sooner we come down to a 
purely gold standard the better it will be for the country. Did any 
country ever accumulate wealth, achieve greatness or attain high civil- 
ization without a standard of value? And what but gold could be that 
standard? * * * Gold is so exact a measure of human effort that 
when it is exclusively used as money it teaches the very habit of hon- 
esty." And so on, in golden rhapsody, paragraph after paragraph! 

Two years passed by. The Forty-fourth Congress convened. On 
April 24 and 25, 1876, Senator Jones delivered a speech in the Senate 
covering thirty pages of the Congressional Record. It was the most 
intense plea for the free and unlimited coinage of silver. That speech 
is the silver Koran from which the faithful have quoted ever since. It 
shows a startling transformation in the opinions of Senator Jones. He 
says: "So far as steadiness is concerned, gold does not deserve to be 
used as money at all. * * * And yet this widely-fluctuating, ruin- 
ously unsteady metal is what the fledglings of political economy, the 
charlatans of monetary conventions and the numerous dupes of Lom- 
bard street would divorce from its natural complement, silver, and have 
for a sole standard of value." Please take note that he makes no charge 
of a "conspiracy" of '1873. He says it was "a wrong committed, no 
doubt, unwittingly. It was a mere caprice of legislation." 

WHO THE MEN WERE. 

That speech gave birth to the silver question. Mr. Stewart was not 
a member of the Senate at the time, but, as evidenced subsequently, he 
endorsed every word of that speech; Is it not self-evident that some- 
thing must have happened in those two years, between April, 1874, and 
April, 1876, which touched these two men very closely, in order to have 
produced such a revolution in their opinions? What was it? Who 
were these men? They were both Senators from Nevada. William M. 



106 



Stewart was the paid attorney of the principal owners of the Comstock 
mines. His professional income was estimated at $200,000. The lead- 
ing journal of Nevada said of him: "He was endowed by nature with 
a faculty of imposing the sublimest absurdities upon juries as pure and 
spotless truth." John P. Jones had been the superintendent of the 
Crown Point mine, located on the Comstock lode. In 1870 the stock 
of that mine was selling from $2 to $7 per share. Mr. Jones and a Mr. 
Hayward bought in the controlling interest. By May, 1871, they owned 
over five-sixths of the entire capital stock. The mine had suddenly 
"struck it rich," and by May, 1872, the shares had risen to a market price 
of $1,825 per share. By the end of 1875 the Crown Point had netted 
over $11,500,000. But a change was coming over many of these "bo- 
nanza" mines. Some of the ore bodies were being exhausted. The 
Crown Point produced $4,000,000 less in 1875 than in 1874. Before the 
close of that year the market value of the stock had fallen to $21. Dur- 
ing the same period, however, another ominous change was preparing. 
These mines were rich in silver. The silver product of the Crown Point 
mine for 1874 was over $4,000,000. The value of the silver product of 
the State of Nevada had risen from $17,000,000 in 1870 to $28,000,000 in 
1875. The Nevada gold production in 1875 was only $12,000,000. In 
April, 1874, when Mr. Jones made his enthusiastic gold-standard speech, 
silver was still worth $1.29 an ounce. It vacillated somewhat, but at 
the close of the year its price still stood at $1.28. In 1875 the price had 
declined very slowly to an average of $1.24 per ounce; but in the first 
months of 1876 the price of silver plunged downward at a rate which 
had been unparalleled in modern times. By March, 1876, the ounce 
price had declined to $1.10. That price represented a decline of over 
14 per cent. — an annual loss to the Crown Point mine of over $500,000, 
based on the production of 1874, and an annual loss to the Nevada mine- 
owners of over $4,000,000. Of twenty mines on the Comstock lode, 
which had paid over $47,000,000 in dividends, not one — including the 
Crown Point — paid a dividend after April, 1876; and it was in that very 
month that the great silver speech of Senator Jones was delivered. 

Is it not as clear as noon-day that this American political silver 
child was born in the Comstock bed and that it was begotten by greed 
and selfish rapacity? [Applause.] 

I would not accuse these gentlemen of the slightest lack of sin- 
cerity, but, as Mr. Bryan so aptly expressed it in his New York speech: 
"So long as human nature remains as it is, there will always be danger, 
more or less restrained by public opinion or legal enactment, that those 
who see a pecuniary profit for themselves in certain conditions may 
yield to the temptation to bring about those conditions." . 

WHO BECAME THE GODFATHER? 

Now that this ill-begotten silver child is born, who became its god- 
father? In December, 1873, there had come into Congress from the 
State of Missouri, a man perfectly honest, perfectly respectable, per- 
fectly sincere, but the caliber of whose brain, most unfortunately for 
his country, was better fitted for hayseed calculations than for the 



107 



problems of finance. That man was Richard P. Bland. Future gen- 
erations will marvel that such a man was so potent in the financial 
legislation of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. As an index 
of his financial profundity, I quote an economic dictum pronounced by 
him in Congress about six years ago (June 6, 1890). He says: "One 
of the great functions of money is to keep up prices. When, therefore, 
you double the amount of wealth in a country, you must, in order to 
keep up the prices, double also the circulating medium." What a rev- 
elation to political economists! [Applause.] 

The month of March, 1874, was only thirteen months after the pass- 
age of the demonetization act. The price of silver still stood at the 
ratio of 16 to 1; therefore, no evils could as yet have come from that 
act. The silver question, as you remember, was not born until two 
years later. On March 18, 1874, Mr. Bland addressed the House. I 
should like to call the attention of every farmer in the United States to 
this speech, delivered when silver was still worth $1.29 an ounce. He 
said: "Notwithstanding heaven has smiled upon the agricultural por- 
tion of the country, rains have fallen and the radiant sun has ripened 
year after year rich and abundant harvests, yet the people have become 
poorer, money scarcer and times harder than ever before." The farm- 
ers of the United States are reminded that in this year of grace 1896 
Mr. Bland is telling them that, owing to the fall in the value of silver, 
it is the competition of free-silver countries which is depressing the 
prices of their products. On June 4, 1874, when an ounce of silver still 
stood at $1.29, Mr. Bland said: "You have by an unexampled contrac- 
tion of the currency reduced the value of the agricultural land and 
produce one-half in the last eight years. * * * While you have re- 
duced in value all on earth the farmer produces at least one-half, you 
have not reduced his debts one cent. His lands have come down, his 
cattle and produce came down, his currency taken away, but his mort- 
gages and debts of all kinds remain standing according to the amount 
of the contract." What Mr. Bland stood for was inflation of the cur- 
rency. It was into this peculiar brain that in 1876 was inoculated the 
silver virus by the speech of Senator Jones, and behold! the godfather 
of the silver child had been found. 

In July, 1876, Mr. Bland introduced a free-coinage bill, and in the 
next two years the question was eagerly debated. Many men clearly 
recognized its pernicious character. In the summer of 1876, when silver 
was worth $1.13 an ounce, General Garfield, discussing free coinage, 
said in the House: "I have never known any proposition that con- 
tained as many of the essential elements of vast rascality or colossal 
swindling as this." In February, 1878, Mr. Blaine said: "The free 
coinage of a dollar containing 412% grains of silver is an undue and 
unfair advantage which the government has no right to give to the 
owner of silver bullion, and which defrauds the man who is forced to 
take the dollar." But the man who most clearly characterized the in- 
fluences at work, and whose words are singularly appropriate to-day, 
was Congressman Blair, of New Hampshire, who, in January, 1878, said 
in the House: "The advocates of irredeemable money having no in- 



.08 



trinsic or commodity value are very numerous and powerful. The sil- 
ver movement is one side-show on their program. The attempt to re- 
peal the resumption act is another. In the management of these sub- 
sidiary exhibitions they have secured the service of many upright men,, 
who do not quite see the nefarious nature of the great humbug which 
they accompany, and to which they lend an unfortunate degree of char- 
acter and prostituted respectability." 

It must be remembered that the first free-coinage bill was intro- 
duced at a time very similar to our own. There had been a panic three 
years before. The community had not recovered from its effects. 
Everybody felt that something was wrong. Many believed that any 
change must be for the better. Panics are the hotbeds of financial de- 
lusions. Men were weak. Moral courage was lacking. The Bland-bill 
compromise was agreed to. President Hayes vetoed it and said in his- 
message: "A currency worth less than it purports to be will in the end 
defraud not only creditors, but all who are engaged in legitimate busi- 
ness, and none more surely than those who are dependent on the"'' 
daily labor for their daily bread." 

SILVER POISONING. 

The bill was passed over his veto and became a law February 28„ 
1878. The silver poison then began to be forcibly injected into our 
financial system. The dose was small — only $2,000,000 worth per month. 
Many poisons taken in small doses act stimulatingly at first. The fol- 
lowing year, 1879, specie payments were resumed. The American dol- 
lar, which had been an eighty-seven-cent dollar in 1873, was again, after 
seventeen years, a full one-hundred-cent dollar. Trade revived. Amer- 
ican enterprise and energy, again unfettered, produced wealth in magic: 
profusion. For four years our crops were abundant. European crops, 
were light. Our exports swelled and a flood of gold poured into the 
country. The silver men taunted their opponents who had prophesied 
that silver coinage would drive out gold. Even Mr. Bland is happy. 
On March 31, 1884, he said in the House: "From the time that we be- 
gan the coinage of silver, confidence took the place of distrust, pros- 
perity that of adversity, and since that time (please mark this!) we 
have, probably since the beginning of our government, never been more 
prosperous." Let us hope that at that time the farmer was enabled to 
pay up his back debts and start anew ! 

Two years again passed by. The outlook was not quite so rosy. 
The amount of silver poison in our financial system had been slowly 
but constantly growing larger. The government dues began to be paid 
more in greenbacks and less in gold. On April 7, 1886, Mr. Bland, who 
only two years before had lauded the exhilarating influence of silver 
coinage, breaks out in the House: "There are a million of men out of 
employment in this country, because there is not sufficient money 
among the people to employ them." * * * "We have the awful 
spectacle of millions starving and naked in the midst of plenty.'* 
* * * "Of all the rascally wrongs perpetrated upon our people, this, 
limited coinage is the most insidious because of its apparent plausi- 
bility." 



109 



The silver poison had begun to undermine our monetary system 
and the cure offered was poison in larger doses. In 1890, by another 
weak-kneed compromise, the government was compelled to increase its 
purchases of silver to 4,500,000 ounces per month. In the twelve years 
preceding, over 291,000,000 ounces of silver had been forced into our 
financial system. It had finally become thoroughly saturated with this 
metallic poison. Far-seeing economists foretold the inevitable. As 
€arly as August, 1890, Mr. Giffen, the English economist, wrote: "The 
moment it is seen that the promise to give the people of the United 
States both gold and silver as a standard cannot be kept, there will 
assuredly be a new agitation, and probably a panic." 

Our exports were enormous. The balance of trade in 1892 was 
$200,000,000 in our favor, but it brought us no prosperity. The foreign 
countries, suspicious of our financial future, balanced their accounts, 
not with gold, but with American securities, which they feared to retain. 
In the three years, 1891, 1892 and 1893, over $156,000,000 of gold were 
exported. Our own people began to hoard it. In the spring of 1893, 
for the first time in fifteen years, the treasury gold reserve fell below 
$100,000,000. The ratio of silver to gold in our treasury, which had only 
been 21 per cent, in 1878, had grown to 173 per cent. The fear of a 
silver basis suddenly spread,' and the ruinous panic of 1893 was upon us. 
"The mills of the gods grind slowly." It had taken fifteen years to 
make good the prophecies of danger resulting from our silver policy. 

THE PRESENT SITUATION. 

We have had six years of constant business strain and insecurity. 
We have had three years of the most acute business distress. Tens of 
thousands of men have been ruined. Want and care have invaded 
countless American homes. Our poor, distracted nation, which should 
be resounding with the voices of gladness and prosperity, has been 
plunged into the depths of dumb despair. And now, after all this sad 
experience with the limited coinage of silver, this nation is asked to 
embark into the bottomless sea of free and unlimited coinage. The 
same original influences persist — selfish personal interest on the one 
hand, inflation on the other. Some men, intelligent and sincere, but 
sentimental and emotional, have joined the silver ranks and are fight- 
ing, as they think, the battle of humanity. To the student of history 
this is not strange. There never was a widespread unrighteous cause 
that was not bolstered up by men who were intelligent, sincere and 
humane. The men who for centuries lit up Europe with the fires of 
burning witches, the judges who condemned Huss and Zwingli, the 
priests who scourged society with the horrors of the Inquisition, all 
sincerely believed that they were working for the untimate welfare of 
humanity. [Applause.] . Our brethren of the South who plunged this 
country into that fratricidal war, in which hundreds of thousands of 
brave lives and billions of treasure were sacrificed, felt confident that 
they were waging the supreme battle of self-government and of human 
liberty. [Applause.] 



110 



We are told that we need a "free and independent" policy of finance. 
Fellow-citizens, that, unfortunately, is the very thing that was forced 
upon us in 1878. [Applause.] Not another one of the leading nations 
was brainless enough to re-embark in the liberal purchases of silver. 
[Applause.] We alone adopted "a free and independent financial pol- 
icy"— and we are bitterly paying for it to-day. [Applause.] We were 
silver poisoned for fifteen years, and we have not yet recovered from 
its baneful effects. 

They assure us that prices have fallen since 1873 because the pri- 
mary money of the world has been reduced by one-half. In the twenty- 
two years from 1873 to 1895 the world produced three times as much 
silver as in the twenty-two years from 1851 to 1873. What became of it? 
The statistics show that since 1873, deducting recoinages, there has been 
injected into the currencies of the world over $2,440,000,000 of silver, all 
of it, we are constantly reminded, circulating at a par of 16 to 1, or 
even higher. In other words, since 1873 there has been added to the 
silver coinage of the world more silver than the entire world produc- 
tion of silver for sixty-eight years before 1873. Verily, that does not 
seem like a cutting down of the primary metals! [Applause.] 

Despite the tremendous fall in the price of silver, its production is 
increasing with every year. In 1895 the world produced 5 per cent, more 
silver than in 1894, 60 per cent, more than in 1888, and nearly 300 per 
cent, more than in 1873. The increase of gold production is now pro- 
ceeding even more rapidly, and in 1895 the gold output exceeded by 4 
per cent, the combined gold and silver production of 1873. 

THE FARMER. 

They tell us that the gold standard has been crushing the farmer 
and the wage-earner. From 1880 to 1890 our population increased 24 
per cent., but the values of our farms in those ten years increased three 
thousand million dollars, or 30 per cent.; and the value of live stock on 
farms, which is one of the tests of agricultural prosperity, had risen 
from one and a half billions to two and one-fifth billions, or 47 per cent. 
If farming has been so utterly unprofitable, it is exceedingly strange 
that in the twenty years from 1870 to 1890 the improved acreage of 
farms in the United States has risen from 188,000,000 to 357,000,000, nearly 
90 per cent. From 1880 to 1890 the number of dwellings in the United 
States increased 27 per cent., or 3 per cent, more than population. But, 
say these calamity howlers, "See how tremendously the mortgages have 
increased." That is indisputable. Yet it might astound some Western 
economists to be informed that mortgages increase in times of pros- 
perity and decrease in times of adversity. In the decade from 1880 to 
1890 the mortgage indebtedness of Colorado increased nearly 500 per 
cent., whereas that of Nevada decreased 19 per cent. That would be 
proof that in those years Colorado was making giant strides in pros- 
perity, and that Nevada was going down hill. Sixty-six per cent, of our 
farmers own their farms, and of these 72 per cent, have no mortgage 
debt. In fact, the mortgage debtor for whom the silver men have shed 



Ill 



so many tears does not seem to live principally in the West or South. 
The statistics of 1890 show that the mortgage indebtedness of the State 
of New York alone is three times as large as the mortgage debt of the 
entire South, four times as large as the mortgage debt of the Rocky 
mountain and Pacific coast regions, and nearly one and three-quarter 
times as large as the combined mortgage indebtedness of the entire 
South, the entire Rocky mountain region and the entire Pacific coast 
region. 

MORE MONEY. 

It is true that the decline in prices of farm products since 1890 has 
been very marked. Let any farmer talk to the merchant in the nearest 
city and he will learn that there has been an equivalent decline in the 
prices of all other goods. The immediate influence has been the dis- 
trustful financial policy since 1890, culminating in the panic of 1893. 
The home market, both of the farmer and the manufacturer, has been 
stricken with palsy. The cause will be found the same for all. The 
silver men state as one cause that we need more money in circulation. 
On the 1st of July of this year we had in circulation $22.55 per capita, 
which is within ten cents per capita of the circulation of 1884, which, 
as you remember, Mr. Bland said was one of the most prosperous years 
in the history of the nation; and it is $8.70, or 63 per cent, per capita 
more than the circulation of 1860, which was also a very prosperous 
year. And yet money is tight, very tight. Why so? If we compare 
the national bank statements of July, 1896, with July, 1892, we see that 
although the deposits have increased $104,000,000 the loans have de- 
creased $46,000,000; and if we add to this the showing as presented 
even in 1895 by the State banks, loan and trust companies and savings 
banks, we find that although the combined deposits increased $205,000,- 
000 the total loans have decreased $175,000,000. That is why money is 
tight and why times are bad. It is not caused by the gold standard, 
but by dread of the silver standard. Financial distrust produces a 
contraction of credit, and the contraction of credit produces a condition 
which justifies increasing financial distrust. If these $175,000,000 and 
more, by which the bankable loans of this country have been contracted, 
had been put in circulation, they would in the cumulative reciprocity of 
exchanges have added billions to the total business of the country. The 
clearing houses of our sixty-two principal cities showed a volume of 
exchanges for 1892 approximating $61,000,000,000. These same clearing 
houses, plus those of sixteen additional cities, for 1895 show a decrease 
in exchanges of $10,000,000,000. If now we add a proportionate reduc- 
tion for the exchanges of the smaller cities and for all the internal ex- 
changes of each bank, we are far within the mark in stating that the 
lack of financial trust and confidence, caused absolutely by our mad 
silver policy, has, as compared with 1892, effected a reduction of ex- 
changes between man and man in our country for the year 1895 of 
$16,000,000,000, or over $50,000,000 for every working day in the year. 
How truly Daniel Webster said: "Credit is the vital air of the system 
of modern commerce. It has done more, a thousand times more, to. 
enrich nations than all the mines of all the world." 



112 



Within this very week two prominent bankers of Colorado have 
assured me that they would at once loan out 25 per cent.' more of their 
deposits if they were absolutely sure of Bryan's defeat. The same feel- 
ing pervades the whole country. A loosening of credit of even 10 per 
cent, of the combined banking deposits would at once throw over $450,- 
000,000 into circulation. Our country has plenty of money, but it suffers 
from the paralysis of credit. The patient stricken with pneumonia has 
plenty of blood, but it does not contain sufficient oxygen. Credit is the 
oxygen necessary for the life blood of monetary circulation. In the 
last five years my heart has bled with untold pity to see, in my own 
State of Colorado, man after man, of the most energetic, the most en- 
terprising, the most public-spirited of our citizens, driven into bank- 
ruptcy, simply because with limited vision they have, with others, per- 
sisted in the agitation of an economic policy which has destroyed public 
confidence and credit, and has swept them to financial ruin. 

This silver poison has affected our business relations externally 
as well as internally. The nations look upon us with suspicion. Our 
securities are thrown back on us and our gold drained from the coun- 
try. Our foreign trade is diminishing. The world hesitates to do busi- 
ness with a nation which threatens to depreciate its money standard. 
Compared with 1892, our exports for 1895 had decreased $223,000,000, or 
over 2iy 2 per cent. These are the malign influences which are oper- 
ating against the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant and every 
American citizen. [Applause.] 

MAINTENANCE OF THE RATIO. 

The silver prophets predicted that the Bland bill would advance the 
price of silver. It did not. Then they told us that the Sherman law 
would bring silver to a par with gold. It did not. Now they tell us 
that unlimited silver coinage would make "silver bullion worth $1.29 
per ounce in gold throughout the world." Let us reason. In 1792 the 
United States said: "We will, by law, put the ratio of silver at 15 to 1, 
or at nearly $1.38 per ounce." That was approximately what silver 
bullion was worth. Every mint in the world was open to the free and 
unlimited coinage of silver, and yet that price did not maintain itself for 
a single year. At present the world's total stock of silver is about 
8,000,000,000 ounces. That, as bullion, is to-day worth about 66 cents 
an ounce, has a value of five and one-quarter billion dollars. And yet, 
although the mint of every advanced nation is closed to unlimited sil- 
ver, we are gravely informed that a congressional law, plus a stroke of 
Mr. Bryan's pen, will raise the value of that stock of silver 95 per cent, 
and add over $5,000,000,000 to its value. Miraculous power! The com- 
mand of Joshua, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon!" shrinks in com- 
parison. [Applause.] In his New York address Mr. Bryan justifies the 
position as follows: "Any purchaser who stands ready to take the en- 
tire supply of any given article at a certain price can prevent that 
article from falling below that price. So the government can fix a price 
for gold and silver by creating a demand greater than the supply." 



113 



This shows the profoundest misconception of the whole question. Un- 
der free silver coinage, how will the government create a demand for 
silver? It will not be compelled to buy any for itself, and our treasury 
already holds $496,000,000 worth of silver dollars and silver bullion — 
which is about $400,000,000 worth more than it actually needs. Under 
free coinage the government would not be forced to purchase a single 
ounce of silver. If silver should advance to $1.29 and steadily maintain 
that price, the demand would actually slacken. The present great 
Asiatic demand for silver exists because the merchants and manufac- 
turers of those countries can buy silver cheap. When the Sherman law 
temporarily advanced the price of silver in the year from June 30, 1890, 
to 1891, our exports of silver at once fell off from thirteen millions to 
four millions. 

Nor, under such a law, could the government fix the price of silver 
as related to gold. It would simply say in effect: "Bring all your sil- 
ver to the mint and we will stamp every 412% grains of it 'one dollar/ 
We cannot compel anyone to give you a gold dollar for it. We cannot 
compel anyone to give you a gold dollar's worth of merchandise for it. 
We cannot fix its value in exchange. If that dollar buys less of goods, 
we cannot help it. We are trying 'a free and independent financial 
policy,' and, as the legend on the dollar reads, 'In God We Trust.' If 
you owe a dollar, however, whether to the creditor who trusted you, 
to the depositor who put it in your bank, or to the laborer who has 
given you of his strength and skill — him we will compel, even if the 
dollar should sink to fifty cents in value, to accept it in full payment." 

At the advanced price there would be no pressure to buy silver, but 
there would come an enormous pressure to sell. Every nation in the 
world would clearly understand that the artificial advance in price could 
net be maintained, and there would be a feverish competition to hurry 
silver here. Our profound silver economists reply that every one would 
be compelled to take something away for the silver. This is the mis- 
fortune. They would take securities and commodities, and we would 
have the silver. But we are not laboring for silver. We cannot eat 
silver, nor can we build houses of it, nor can we clothe ourselves with 
it. It is food, shelter and clothing that man principally works for, and 
the precious metals are mere tools to that end. [Applause.] 

THE BEST CUSTOMERS. 

Another branch of our silver friends says: "Even if the ratio can- 
not be maintained and we drift to a silver standard, we shall have a 
brilliant future, because we shall have a par exchange with silver-using 
countries." Which is the best trade of the world? That with Europe, 
or with Asia and South America? In the one hundred years from 1793 
to 1892, inclusive, we sold to Europe twenty billions of merchandise, 
and to all the others countries in the world six billions. In 1793 we sold 
to Europe only 50 per cent, more than to all the other nations. Now 
we sell Europe nearly 500 per cent. more. The silver men invite us to 
risk the loss of business with rich, solvent customers in the hope of in- 

8 



114 



creasing trade with the slums. If a silver basis would be such a help 
to increased trade with silver-using countries, pray inform us why the 
two most intelligent South American nations, Chili and Costa Rica, 
surrounded as they are with silver-standard countries, have within this 
very year changed to a gold basis? [Applause.] 

There is no salvation in their proposed financial experiment. It 
rests on a mental delusion. It is poisoning the fountains of national 
honesty. It tempts and corrupts by the hope of despoiling the creditor. 
It points to the degradation of public faith. If I had to be crucified, I 
should prefer a cross of gold rather than the cross of silver with the 
infernal fires of repudiation and of dishonesty flaming underneath. 
[Applause.] There has been no crucifixion of mankind. Since 1873 
the deposits in our financial institutions, excluding savings banks, have 
risen from $732,000,000 to the enormous sum of $2,945,000,000. In these 
same years the deposits in our savings banks have increased a thousand 
million dollars, and the assets of our building and loan associations 
have risen to over $600,000,000. The latter are the depositories of our 
wage-earners, and the growing deposits in these institutions show the 
effects of the increase of wages in our country, which, since 1860, de- 
spite the shortening of the hours of labor, have advanced over 60 per 
cent. Since 1860 population increased 91 per cent., and the national 
wealth, despite the ravages of the rebellion, increased from $16,000,000,- 
000 to $65,000,000,000, a gain of 302 per cent. Do not these incontro- 
vertible statistics show rather the transfiguration of mankind under 
the uplifting influences of civil and religious liberty? [Applause.] 

INTELLECTUAL ASTIGMATISM. 

It is sometimes difficult to understand why the same facts presented 
to intelligent minds do not lead to the same conclusions. Have you 
ever seen a patient examined for astigmatism? The oculist places be- 
fore the patient a chart with converging lines. He asks the patient to 
look at line after line. The patient sees perfectly. Suddenly he comes 
to a line or lines which he cannot see. He has his eyes wide open. He 
is honestly trying, to see. But he cannot. Nature has denied him the 
power. I maintain that there is such a thing as intellectual astigmatism 
— a condition of the mind which renders it impossible for the individual 
to see certain lines of thought and fact in their true relation. That is 
what the silver men are suffering from. [Applause.] You understand, 
of course, that when intellectual astigmatism becomes abnormal, we 
put the patient in an asylum. The silver men, however, may retort in 
all fairness that we are the intellectual astigmatics. So the inmates of 
an asylum may lean out of the windows and accuse the passers-by of 
being the ones mentally afflicted. [Applause.] Who shall decide? 
The doctors, of course. And how do the financial doctors agree on the 
question of silver? With one single exception, there is not a political 
economist of standing in the wide world; there is not a single man who 
was ever Secretary of our treasury, Comptroller of our currency, or 
Director of our mint) there is not one out of a thousand of the men 



115 



whose business compels some acquaintance with the principles of finance 
— I mean the bankers of this and every other country — who says that 
the United States would be financially safe in undertaking alone the un- 
limited coinage of silver. [Applause.] 

I have no fears as to the result of this election. Its outcome will 
teach the onlooking nations that the crown of over one hundred years 
of political life under republican institutions shall not be the national 
impairment of debt obligations; and it will be held up as a warning to 
our children and our children's children that a public policy 
which is tainted with but a breath of dishonesty will be 
indignantly spurned by this proud American people. I have 
the deepest sympathy with many of the "free-silver" adherents. 
They are my neighbors. I am bound to them by my interests, my 
associations and my affections. They are honest and sincere men. 
They love their country and would not willingly plunge it into destruc- 
tion. But they have been deluded and misled. "The best friend of 
truth is time," and as time rolls on these, our misguided fellow-citizens, 
will yet be grateful to those who helped to check them in their mad 
rush to self-destruction; they will yet thank God for the defeat which 
will overwhelm them in November; and they will bless us who are 
assembled in Indianapolis this day, and who, by the courageous, manly 
and patriotic influences of this Convention, will make that defeat in- 
evitable. [Great applause.] 

The Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor 
of introducing to you as the next speaker, Hon. David W. 
Lawler, of Minneapolis. 

Hon. David W. Lawler, of Minneapolis, spoke as fol- 
lows: 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-Democrats [applause] 
— A message was pronounced this afternoon by a golden tongue — a 
message of good tidings from the golden coast of the Pacific ocean. 
[Applause.] I am here to-night commissioned by the stalwart Democ- 
racy of the Northwest to say to you that the fires of patriotism are 
burning bright to-night along the mountain border and where the north 
star shines upon the fair commonwealth of Minnesota [applause] the 
Democratic party still lives and the principles of Thomas Jefferson are 
the guiding, vital doctrines in the hearts and lives of men. When the 
historian, of whom your Temporary Chairman spoke, shall write in the 
future the political history of the end of the nineteenth century, al- 
though on one page he shall tell of the debasement at Chicago, on an- 
other and a brighter page he will write of the glories and the splendor 
of Indianapolis. [Applause.] It is not necessary, because it has been 
done in tongue more eloquent than which has never spoken the English 
language, to recite the deep damnation of Chicago. [Applause.] It 
came like lightning out of a clear sky to the gallant Democracy of the 
Northwest. We had been taught from our political childhood that 



116 



there were certain tenets in the Democratic faith which were as rock- 
ribbed and ancient as the hills, and which should last, and die only 
with the death of creation itself. We have been taught that Democracy 
stood for national honor, for the payment of the national or the private 
debt in dollars worth a hundred cents on the dollar [applause]; and 
from the clear, cold atmosphere of our country, when the Chicago plat- 
form was announced to a startled people, we sent word back to the 
traitorous representatives who betrayed us in that city: You shall not 
cut in two the dollar or the loaf of bread of the American laborer [ap- 
plause]; you shall not cut in two the tuition of the child, the savings 
of the widow, the pension of the veteran, nor the honor of the American 
people and the American name. [Applause.] 

We had been taught that the judicial institutions of all the great 
races which speak the English tongue had for more than two hundred 
years of a glorious history been the only safeguards for the individual 
against the oppression of the ruler, be he lawless mob or be he titled 
monarch; and when the Supreme Court of the United States, in the lan- 
guage of a political platform, was threatened with political debauch, 
we said: "You are no longer Democrats, and we will follow the old 
flag itself, no matter where it may lead." [Applause.] 

We had been taught to reverence the great leaders and the great 
founders of our party from Jefferson down to Tilden; and when they 
denied the common courtesy of common honesty to the greatest of all 
the Presidents who sat in the chair since Abraham Lincoln left it by 
the assassin's bullet, we said, you are no longer Democrats; we will 
follow the teachings and the instructions of Grover Cleveland. [Ap- 
plause.] 

When they say to us that we are disloyal to the traditions of our 
fathers and to the teachings of our faith, we say that there are two mon- 
sters more horrible than that painted by the pencil of Milton as they 
squatted at the gates of hell, and these two monsters of Populism and 
Paternalism are threatening the fair form of the genius Democracy; 
and that against them we draw the sword of honor and of pariotism. 
[Applause.] Embarked in this great cause, there can be no such end 
as defeat. No matter what vote may be enrolled for the ticket and 
for the platform which shall be chosen and constructed by this Con- 
vention, the end of this campaign for those who sit here and for the 
great organization of our love can only be that of a glorious victory; 
and while it may be true that the great principles of Democracy for 
which we stand in this Convention may be those of a minority party, 
in the fullness of God's good time there will come another day, another 
convention, and another election, when the principles for which we 
stand now shall be ratified by the American people [applause]; and in 
the glory of that future time, when the great party of our love shall 
once more sit enthroned in all the people's hearts, and with its benign 
sway shall guide again the destinies of this proud people — in that 
glorious day when men shall come together to go over the proud pages 
of American history and shall mention the names of those who have 
done much and well for their country and for their flag, the men who 



117 



stood in the gap in 1896 will be written down by their children and by 
their children's children as not among the least of those whose names 
are upon the roll of the great army of American patriots. [Great 
applause.] 

The Chairman: Fellow-citizens, in the darkest hours of 
our political history there was one State in the Union that 
never wandered from its allegiance. Whatever else might be 
the faith of our party in those places which had been its 
stronghold, we looked with confidence to untiring, indomit- 
able, always constant New Jersey. Now we reveal no 
political secret— as you will naturally imagine, I am some- 
what familiar with New Jersey ; I live close by its borders, 
and I believe I am not saying too much when I declare that 
nine-tenths of New Jersey get their living from New York — 
I am revealing no political secrets when I say that New Jer- 
sey will not give its electoral vote this fall to the nominees 
of the Chicago convention. [Applause.] You would rather 
hear that, I imagine, from the lips of one of its own sons; 
and I have great pleasure in introducing to you one of the 
most brilliant and conspicuous Democrats of New Jersey, in 
the person of Hon. C. F. Lewis, who will now address you. 

Hon. C. F. Lewis, of New Jersey, spoke as follows: 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen — I am most happy to con- 
firm the assertion of our president. We have no apprehension in New 
Jersey that our electoral votes will be given to Bryan and Watson 
[laughter and applause], nor to any tail of the dragon. But, my friends, 
I venture to go farther. It seems to me that some of us who are here 
to-night, while we feel the encouragement of this occasion, while we 
are uplifted by the sympathy and the enthusiasm of those around us, 
have not been ready to appreciate the fact that this sympathy, this 
enthusiasm, is not limited to-night to the walls of this building, is not 
limited to-night to the streets and homes of this city, is not limited to- 
night to the State of Indiana, but is felt thrilling and throbbing through 
the length and breadth of our common country. [Applause.] 

I find proofs of this on every hand, and some have come to me since 
I have taken my seat among you to-night — proofs which show that this 
political movement of ours, which had its origin, as it were, but yes- 
terday, and which has already taken, obviously and before our eyes, 
the most splendid form which any political movement in the history 
of the world ever took in so short a time [applause], is not limited 
by the boundaries of our vision. Why, have you heard the news from 
the Democratic convention in New Hampshire to-day; have you heard 



118 



how, when the majority of that convention endeavored, in true Bryan 
and Watson style, to howl down the voice of sound money, that gallant 
and intrepid and true Democrat, Harry Bingham, rose to his feet, 
marched out of the convention, and on the spur of the moment, without 
waiting for regularity, without waiting for permission from their con- 
stituents, without waiting for anything but the knowledge of their 
consciences and of Democratic principles, eighty-nine out of two hun- 
dred and twenty-five delegates followed him out of the door. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Why is it that on the day of the meeting of this Indianapolis Con- 
vention, this first great strike for Democratic principles occurs in that 
grand old State? I tell you, Mr. President, it is because we have here 
to-day — and it is known throughout the country that we have a voice 
to declare Democratic principles for the first time in this campaign — we 
have here a free and untrammeled expression of the principles of the 
fathers, of the traditions of the fathers. 

Now, it is well for us to recur at times to first principles, to look 
at what the Democratic idea is in all its simplicity. We are familiar 
with it, and we love to dwell upon it, and turn it as a sweet morsel 
under our tongue, to rest upon it with all its richness in our minds, to 
feed upon it, and so strengthen our aspirations and our souls. What is 
the Democratic idea? It is the conception of an organized society, 
whose whole power shall be directed for the power and enforcement of 
equal rights among all its citi/' 13. That is the whole of the Demo- 
cratic creed. It is developed in a housand forms. It is applied in a 
thousand ways. The wisdom of oui lathers, the wisdom of its admin- 
istrators in the government of the United States has applied it to a 
thousand questions in our history, amid the ever-growing greatness 
and prosperity of the country, until this principle has brought us to the 
position we hold to-day, of foremost nation of the world. But it is still 
the same Democratic principle — a government organized to bring equal 
rights home and confer them upon every citizen. Now, what is the 
opposite principle to this? You must consider the effect of the enforce- 
ment of this principle. It is simply this: that all laws, all those which 
impose taxes as well as those which enforce penalties, and all other 
statutes of the Republic, shall be directed to produce a state of society 
in which property shall be the reward of service to mankind; in which 
money or property shall be acquired by earning it, and not in any other 
way; in which every man in the community shall have an equal right 
to earn his living and to acquire property and money. What is the 
opposite idea? The opposite idea is that money and property shall be 
given to certain persons, or to particular classes, by the agency of 
legislation. That is the whole of it. It is the protective idea, pure and 
simple, which is the antithesis and antagonist forever of Democracy. 
[Applause.] Protection means that money shall be taken from me, 
from my pocket, and put into the pocket of another man. The Demo- 
cratic principle is that when I have earned my dollar I shall be able to 
keep it or to use it at my discretion for my own purposes. [Applause.] 



119 



Now, sir, in this canvass we have had one party after another com- 
ing out before the country and appealing for the suffrages of citizens, 
and each of them has declared in its platform a body of principles. Has 
any one of them before to-day uttered Democratic principles as the 
basis of its claim? What did the Republican party do at St. Louis? It 
proclaimed its adherence to the principle of protection — to the principle 
which we claim is one of injustice and oppression, and one which pre- 
vents the honest earning and retention of his earnings by the man who 
labors to serve society. That party came out with a declaration of 
principles which we cannot accept. We were prepared to contend 
against it and fight against it for the control of the government with 
the Democratic principles and traditions of our fathers, and we turned 
for help to Chicago, where the Democratic name and the Democratic 
banner were carried by those whom the party throughout the country 
had entrusted with the duty of speaking for it. What did they do? We 
all know what they did. We need not repeat it now, for it has been 
told you with greater emphasis and in more golden words than I can 
control. I wish simply to call your attention to this fact, that every- 
thing they did was the adoption in an intensified and exaggerated form 
of the protective principle. It was the betrayal, the abandonment and 
the defiance of the principles of the Democratic party. [Applause.] 
They proclaimed there that any man who happened to be the owner of 
silver, when they came into power, should go to the mint and have its 
value doubled at the cost of the people of the United States by a lie 
stamped upon it in the name of our government. [Applause.] Here is 
the protective principle, pure and simple, but exaggerated far beyond 
what the Republican party in its wildest dreams has ever thought of 
advocating. [Applause.] How is it exaggerated? I have looked with 
diligence at the speeches which the great advocate of free silver, as he 
calls it, is making throughout the land, and I find that he has one argu- 
ment — rather, one declaration — which he repeats in every speech, which 
he makes heard every day, and which I venture to say is the strangest 
thing in the form of an argument that ever was presented to a civilized 
nation. It is this which he repeats in a thousand forms: Don't let 
your legislation be dictated to you by foreign governments! Let the 
American people govern themselves and reject all laws which it is at- 
tempted to force upon them from abroad! What is the meaning of this? 
If you look at it in its logical effect, if you look at it in connection with 
his speech, it simply means this, that the scientific conclusions which 
the experience of the human race has forced upon all the other govern- 
ments of the earth must be rejected and spurned by us because they 
had not their origin in our own country. [Applause.] 

Carry out this principle to its logical result, and what does it 
amount to? Scientific men of the United States, beware! You are 
traitors if you recognize the law of gravitation! Newton was not an 
American. [Applause.] Christian churches ■ of America, you are 
traitors if you recognize the goodness and the glory of Jesus Christ, for 
no one claims that he was an American. [Applause.] Ah, no, but Mr. 
Bryan means more than this in his dealings with foreign nations. His 



120 



domestic policy amounts to a foreign policy, as you will see at once 
when you remember what his program and principles are with refer- 
ence to silver coinage. In this very year of grace in which we live 
there are about two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, at the coinage 
value of silver bullion, dug out of the earth and thrown upon the mar- 
kets of the world. Three-fourths of it not by Americans, but by for- 
eigners, most of it from Mexico and from South America. What is Mr. 
Bryan's policy with regard to these foreigners, and to these foreign 
nations? It is that Congress shall pass a law inviting them to come 
and bring their silver to the mint of the United States and have it, for 
our sole use and benefit, stamped at double its value, in order that it 
may be paid to the. people of the United States at a valuation which it 
does not bear anywhere else in the world. [Applause.] This is the 
treatment of foreign nations to which we are invited by the man who 
proclaims that all truth must be rejected that does not originate among 
the people of the United States. [Applause.] 

But, gentlemen and ladies — for the ladies are as deeply interested 
in these questions as any of their husbands, their brothers and their 
sons — we feel that the living destinies of the Republic, the existence 
of our institutions, depend upon the overthrow of this tide of passion, 
of sectional prejudice, of socialism and anarchy, which, under the influ- 
ence of discontent and delusion and the false teaching of demagogues, 
is threatening to sweep over the country. I shall not attempt to repeat 
what you have been told so effectually of the necessary consequences 
of the free coinage of silver as proposed in the Chicago platform. I 
only want to call your attention to one point which has been too much 
neglected, which we have forgotten in our platforms and in our speeches 
generally to bring before the people, simply because the overwhelming 
disasters which are immediately before us in contemplation of/such an 
end for our country have darkened our eyes to more ultimate conse- 
quences; but if you look back into the history of the United States for 
the last forty years, every philosophical observer will remark one great 
fact, and that is, that the era of the late war, the war of the rebellion, 
was the era at which an entire change in the superstructure of the gov- 
ernment of the United States began. It is the era from which dates the 
colossal fortunes which have been the reproach, to a large extent, of our 
Eastern communities, and to some extent of our Western, among the 
masses of the people. It was the date at which the era of speculation 
began, when the fevered, eager desire to get something for nothing, 
which is the curse of civilization in all countries and has been the 
especial curse of our own country through the last generation, began to 
be prominent among us. We find our farmers everywhere complaining 
that speculation, in grain, for example, is an injury to their business 
and a reproach to their honest employment. It began practically at 
that time; and so it is with all the great trusts and combinations, con- 
spiracies and monopolies of the day. They had their origin then; every 
man who has studied the matter knows that the origin of them, the 
origin of the spirit of speculation out of which they have grown, was 
the fluctuating currency which resulted from the suspension of specie 



121 



payments and the issue of the greenback [applause], and the overthrow 
of Democratic doctrine in the control of the currency of the United 
States. [Great applause.] That was the point from which it all dated, 
and it has gone on to the pitch that we see now. And how could it be 
otherwise, when it became obvious to every man in the United States 
that a single man, if by study he could foresee the value of the currency 
in its fluctuation to-morrow, could by purchase and sales in the market 
acquire more property, take more money to his single use in one day 
than the honest, industrious laborer could acquire in a lifetime? What 
a temptation it was! What a temptation is such a state of the market 
to every man! When this is the case, when the currency is fluctuating 
in value, then there is inevitably a tide of speculation flowing over the 
land which corrupts the very source of industry, and which makes the 
desire to obtain property by other means than productive industry and 
service to society irresistible to the mass of men. [Applause.] This 
corrupting influence, this overthrow of the moral sense in business 
affairs, this degradation of the industries cf all the land, is the feast 
to which the platform of the Chicago convention invites us. [Ap- 
plause.] Why, within four years back the price of silver, the value of 
it, the exchangeable value in the products of the world, has fluctuated 
violently to the extent of 50 per cent, of its entire value, sometimes in 
a day. Fluctuation to such an extent is the strongest temptation to 
speculation. Put the whole business of the land on that basis, and you 
turn the whole business of the land into gambling. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, after adoption of such a principle as this in the plat- 
form, it was fitting, entirely fitting, that it should go on to attack the 
venerable institutions of our country, the safeguards of our liberties, in 
its judiciary, as you have heard it so eloquently depicted to-night; it 
was supremely fitting that it should insult the Democratic President of 
the United States by repudiating the noblest act in his career, which 
has also been depicted to us in such terms as we can never forget. 
[Applause.] Ah, you remember that time. It is not so long ago when 
it seemed to us as if the foundations of our institutions were trem- 
bling, and we were ready before we knew, before we appreciated all the 
situation, many of us were ready to cry, 

" Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, 
Like some of the simple great ones gone 
Forever and ever hy, 
One still strong man in a blatant land, 
Whatever they call him, what care I— 
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat— one 
Who can rule and dare not lie." 

We need not have uttered that despairing cry, for in due time, at the 
moment of greatest need, the man declared himself in the man whom 
the American people had clothed with the power to suppress disorder 
and enforce the laws. [Applause.] 

I am aware that it was fashionable at Chicago, and is at many other 
places in the country, to sneer at our President, but the reception which 
has been given to words spoken of him here encouraged me to utter my 



122 



view, which is, and has been for a long time, that we have in him one 
of the few men in this day in public life who can afford, in the language 
of Bacon, "disregarding all the current voices of the hour, to bequeath 
his memory to foreign nations and the next ages." [Great applause.] 
For, brother Democrats, while the Democratic party is entitled to the 
gratitude of marikind, and will be inscribed in history as so entitled for 
a thousand services to this Republic, I can name no service within the 
lifetime of men now living which it has rendered so great as that of 
placing our present President in the presidential chair [applause] ; and 
while I am well aware that men differ in their estimates of greatness, 
and some are ready only to honor and worship the greatness of wisdom, 
others that of strength, and others believe that all men are much alike, 
and that nothing but opportunity makes one man more conspicuous 
than another — but for the union of all the elements of greatness, for 
wisdom, and strength, and opportunity, I declare that the foremost man 
in the world to-day is Grover Cleveland. [Great applause.] 

Gentlemen, the reception you give to this remark is one that fills 
my heart with joy. When an intelligent body of American citizens, 
such as I see before me, can, without dissenting voice, receive a senti- 
ment like this, so in contradiction with what is commonly thought to be 
the controlling vulgar prejudice of the day, I feel that our principles, 
our Democratic principles, our principles of securing equal rights for 
all, are on the way to victory [applause] ; I feel that I can point with a 
swelling heart to that glorious flag over our heads and cry, 

" Flag of the heroes, who've left her their glory, 
Borne thro' their battle-field's thunder and flame, 
Blazoned in song and illumined in story, 
Wave over us all who inherit their fame. 
Up with our banner bright, sprinkled with starry light, 
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, 

While thro' the sound and sky 

Echoes the Nation's cry, 
Union and liberty, one evermore." 

The Chairman: Gentlemen, it is a splendid exhibition of 
the character of this gathering that you greet with such hearty 
applause sentiments like those we have just listened to. It 
is a splendid exemplification of the patriotism which ani- 
mates — the purposes which control this Convention and this 
assemblage — that we have not only secured upon this plat- 
form tonight representatives from every portion of our com- 
mon country, but that these representatives are the very best 
products of the localities from which they come. [Applause.] 
Of course that excludes absolutely the Chairman, who is 
only here for the purpose of introducing others. [Laughter.] 
Now we are to hear from the extreme South — the Mississippi 



123 



Delta. You will remember that most humorous incident at 
the Chicago convention when I have recalled it; you will 
deem that I have not spoken incorrectly in saying that it has 
been our fortune to secure the better representatives of the 
better sentiments of the localities from which they come. 
You remember that gentleman who stood upon the platform 
and through some fifteen minutes of laughter on the part of 
the convention, irrigated so copiously, so generously, his 
somewhat arid wastes of thought in an appeal to sectionalism, 
and an attempt to awaken the prejudices of one part of the 
country against the other. I have now the honor of intro- 
ducing to you a Louisianian of a different and nobler type — 
a man who speaks for the whole country, and speaks with 
the voice and inspiration of a Democrat. You will have the 
pleasure of listening, as I have in presenting, Hon. E. H. 
Farrar, of Louisiana. 

Mr. Farrar, of Louisiana, spoke as follows: 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — As I am a plain lawyer, and 
not an orator, I crave leave to present you a written address rather 
than a conned oration. 

I believe there is a delegation here from the South of sufficient size 
and character to show that the Populistic anaconda that swallowed the 
Chicago convention has not poured its slime nor fastened its fangs on 
everybody in our part of the United States. [Applause.] 

We claim to represent tens of thousands of Democrats who will not 
surrender the faith of the fathers, who will not fall down and worship 
false gods, although set up with all the gorgeous pomp of authority 
and all the trumpet-blowing and cymbal-clashing of officialism. [Ap- 
plause.] 

We regard the contest into which the American people have plunged 
as one not merely of the administration of governmental affairs for 
four years, but as one which puts to every voter the solemn question: 
"Do you wish this Republic to stand, and to continue to stand, on the 
corner-stones of justice, of public order and of private right, or do you 
wish to overthrow our social fabric, to organize injustice, to glorify 
repudiation, to paralyze the power of the courts, to invade the domain 
of contract between man and man, and to establish a state socialism at 
war with the principles of free government and abhorrent to the con- 
sciences of freemen?" 

This is no mere rhetorical statement. The object of a party is to 
carry into practical effect the principles set forth in its platform; and 
we are obliged to presume that the Popocracy (for this I call them, as 



124 

they are not entitled to the grand old name of Democracy) intend, if 
they attain power, to legislate according to their declared principles. 
What are their declared principles? 

First — They virtually declare that in the Federal government lies 
the power and the duty of issuing legal tender money, which means 
that it can stamp a rag as a dollar and say to the people, "This is your 
money; you shall have no other but it." 

Second — They attack the financial organization of the nation by 
pronouncing against all banks of issue, even though that issue is guar- 
anteed by the national faith through the deposit of government bonds 
as security. They thug propose to destroy this important function of 
modern banking, and to launch a government of delegated authority, 
where all powers not expressly granted or necessarily implied are re- 
served to the people and the States, into an unlimited banking business, 
which cannot but end, as all other similar experiments have ended, in 
bankruptcy and ruin. This is not only financial foolishness, but state 
socialism of the most pronounced type. [Applause.] 

Third — They propose to prohibit all men who may wish to exchange 
their products or their labor for money, or their money for the products 
and labor of others, from making that exchange freely and according 
to the essential principles of ownership and of contract. If such con- 
tracts are made, they propose to bait and coddle dishonesty by permit- 
ting the debtor to solve his contract by giving something different from 
what he freely obligated himself to give. When that same spirit of 
Saxon liberty that moved Edward Coke to declare fearlessly, in a des- 
potic age, from the high seat of English justice, that there are things 
beyond even the supereminent power of the legislature, moves us to 
protest against this monstrous invasion of private right, they coolly 
justify themselves by pointing to the act of a Russian despot and a 
usurping French Emperor. 

Fourth — They make three separate assaults on the integrity and 
authority of the Federal judiciary; first, on their life tenure of office; 
second, on their power to protect property and the functions of the gov- 
ernment by the writ of injunction, and third, on their independence of 
opinion. If these three assaults should be successful, then that nice 
adjustment of the checks and balances established in the Constitution, 
which has been the admiration and wonder of thinking statesmen for 
a hundred years and more, will be shattered, the great conservative fly- 
wheel of our system will either cease to revolve or be made to turn so 
fitfully as to be a clog and a hindrance, and in lieu of that great and 
noble government framed by our ancestors with meditation and prayer, 
in order that it might perpetuate the blessings of liberty and union 
forever, we shall have licentious laws upheld by servile judges, and 
shall see the life, limb and property of the citizen lie prone at the mercy 
of every riotous mob of lawbreakers. 

Who hatched this brood of infernalisms and dubbed it Democracy? 
[Applause.] Who will stand sponsor for this lame, swart, crooked 
foundling that claims to be the legitimate offspring of Democratic 



125 



thought and Democratic sentiment? Who will come before the Amer- 
ican people and advocate such doctrines, except the Altgelds and the 
Tillmans and that sad band of fallen leaders, once in shining harness 
standing as protagonists in the Democratic hosts, but now, with all 
their brightness dimmed, taking orders under such captains? 

For these reasons alone, apart from the consideration of the money 
question, no true Democrat can support the Chicago platform and the 
nominees who stand on it. But all of these revolutionary vagaries are 
apparently lost to public view in the passionate acclaim of that plat- 
form and its supporters for the free and unlimited coinage of silver at 
the ratio of 16 to 1. Here again they come into conflict with ancient 
party principles and practices. All the founders and all the great 
leaders of the Democracy during that growing period when its princi- 
ples were undergoing formulation were for sound money only. [Ap- 
plause.] 

The experience of the nation under the coinage act of 1792, whereby 
gold was driven out of circulation, and their study of the financial his- 
tory of the nations of the old world, convinced these leaders, as it con- 
vinced the statesmen of England, and at a later period the statesmen of 
all the civilized nations, that there is no such thing as true bimetallism; 
that any attempt to establish it leads to alternate metallism, where 
the one metal drives the other out of circulation, accordingly as its 
market value changes from its coinage ratio; and that alternate metal- 
lism produces contractions of the currency and perturbations in all 
business affairs, both internal and external. 

Being convinced of this fundamental economic truth, which is as 
absolute and as universal in its operation as the law of gravitation, a 
Democratic committee of a Democratic Congress in 1834 reported a bill 
the object of which was to put the finances of this country on a gold 
basis, and to drive silver out of circulation. That act was adopted, and 
it received the approval of a Democratic President. 

Finding, however, that the operation of the act went too far by also 
driving out of circulation the silver small change — dimes, quarters and 
half dollars, which were not true subsidiary money, because coined of 
full relative value with the silver dollar — a Democratic Congress in 
1853 fortified the act of 1834 by stopping the free coinage of silver in 
such denominations, by giving the government the monopoly of the 
coinage of subsidiary money, by reducing its legal tender power to five 
dollars, and by debasing such coin to such an extent that its value as 
money was worth more than its value as bullion. 

These acts so firmly established the financial policy of the United 
States, and took it so thoroughly out of the sphere of politics, that 
when the revision act, which subsequently became the so-called crime 
of 1873, was prepared by a Republican Comptroller of the Currency, un- 
der the direction of a Republican Secretary of the Treasury, and sub- 
mitted to a Republican Congress, the policy was confirmed by statute, 
and for that statute members voted without distinction of party. When 
all these acts were passed gold was the cheaper metal at the ratio of 



126 



16 to 1. To show what a small part silver played during that period in 
the finances of the country, there had been coined in our mints between 
1792 and 1873 less than $144,000,000 of silver and more than $795,000,000 
of gold. Since the act of 1873 the market value of silver has steadily 
declined, and its production has steadily increased, even in the face of 
the declining value. 

From 1889 to 1895, inclusive, its average production by weight with 
gold has exceeded 20 to 1, and since 1881 its annual value at the ratio of 
16 to 1 has exceeded the gold production without a break in the proces- 
sion of years. In 1873 the coinage value of the world's production of 
silver was $81,800,000, and in 1895 it was more than three times that 
amount, in spite of the notorious fact that large numbers of silver mines 
are shut down, that only the very richest of the new ones are opened 
up, that only the fat ores are smelted, and that untold thousands of 
low grade ores are lying on the mine dumps awaiting a rise in the com- 
mercial value of silver. The flood of the white metal that would be 
turned loose on the markets of the world by any material rise in its 
commercial value would drown them in its flowing tide, and would 
drive the price of silver to the lowest point ever known in its history — 
to a point, in fact, where it would be no longer profitable to produce it, 
except in very rich mines. 

All of the civilized nations of the earth have stopped the free and 
unlimited coinage of silver, even those nations whose standard is legally 
bimetallic. The stocks of silver now held by France and the United 
States, the two principal bimetallic States in population and in wealth, 
are so large that they are both staggering under the burden, and are 
both struggling from day to day to prevent themselves from sinking to a 
monometallic silver basis. Spain and Greece, two other bimetallic 
countries, have practically succumbed and passed to a silver basis. 
Russia, with all the power of her autocracy, is preparing to life her 
people from a silver to a gold standard. Little Chili is making the same 
attempt. All free coinage countries are to-day on a monometallic silver 
basis. None of them can carry their bonds or securities at par. None 
of them use any gold. In all of them the rate of interest for money is 
higher than in gold countries. In all of them the position of the labor- 
ing man is painful and debased. 

Standing face to face with all these indisputable laws and facts, the 
Popocrats wish this country to try the experiment of the free and un- 
limited coinage of silver at 16 to 1, without the assistance of any of the 
great commercial nations. Those among them who are both intelli- 
gent and dishonest know that this means silver monometallism in the 
United States, with a silver dollar of daily fluctuating value, or paper 
exchangeable for it, as the only circulating medium. They understand 
the operation of Gresham's law as well as we do. They further under- 
stand that debased money means a fictitious and disproportionate rise 
in all prices except the price of labor and personal services. They have 
heard of the days down in Dixie when it took seventeen hundred dollars 
to buy a pair of boots; and many of them owe seventeen hundred dol- 



127 



lars and have several stray pairs of boots for sale at that price. 
[Laughter and applause.] 

In purpose and in heart these men are nothing more nor less than 
repudiators, and that is a Latin term for the good old Saxon name of 
thief. [Applause.] Their object is to pay their own debts and those of 
the nation in debased silver dollars, like the "blue gowns" that Fred- 
erick the Great caused to be circulated in Prussia during the seven 
years' war and the "calamity money" of Charles of Sweden. 

But they attempt to find a salve for their consciences in the asser- 
tion that gold has enhanced in value; that it has taken on an unearned 
increment, increasing thereby the burden of debt, and that it is right 
and proper to bring it back to the ancient value of silver. The process 
of reasoning by which that claim is justified is that which established 
the relation of cause and effect between Tenterden Steeple and the 
Goodwin Sands in the minds of all the members of the congregation 
who opposed putting on the steeple. They believed it was a wicked act, 
and that the Lord would punish it. When the sands began to form and 
choke up the town harbor, their position was triumphantly demon- 
onstrated. Before the steeple there were no sands; after the steeple 
came the sands; therfore, the steeple caused the sands. [Laughter.] 
By this process it can easily be proved that the murder of Julius Caesar 
was the cause of the discovery of America. [Laughter and applause.] 

In logic this is the ancient and worn-out fallacy of post hoc, ergo 
propter hoc. It appeals strongly, however, to ignorant and prejudiced 
minds, which mistake one of the necessary conditions of causation for 
all of the elements of causation. These false reasoners take a list of 
certain articles and staple products which the progress of invention, the 
cheapening of freights, the increase in production, the changing habits 
and tastes of mankind and many other specific causes have made to de- 
cline in price since 1877 — a date which marked the crest of the wave of 
one of those periodic rises and falls in prices visible in all the centuries, 
and which began in 1837. With this list they compare the value of 
silver, which has also declined for the same good reasons; and from 
this comparison they draw the conclusion that the value of silver has 
remained stationary and the value of gold has risen. This argument is 
of as little value as would be the conclusion of two persons going down 
in two parallel elevators at the same speed, that they were standing 
still, and that the house was shooting up to the skies. [Laughter and 
applause.] 

The most conclusive proofs that gold has not increased in value 
during this period are: 

First — That there are very many articles whose value has risen, and 
not fallen, among them that greatest of all articles that is bought and 
sold all over the earth — human labor and the compensation of personal 
services. [Applause.] 

Second — That the rae of interest at which all the great borrowers 
of money — nations, States, cities, towns, railroads and great industrial 



128 



enterprises — have been able to refund their old debts and to borrow new 
gold money has sensibly declined. The same decline is visible in the 
rate of discount on private loans. 

This fable about the rise in gold did not take its origin in this 
country. It was propounded by Mr. Laveleye, the representative of the 
French bimetallists, taken up by his confrere, Cernuschi, and adopted 
by the German Agrarian and the Manchester Spinner bimetallists, of 
whom Mr. Goschen is the representative. It has been examined by all 
the great continental political economists — Jannet, Mulhall, Juglar, Le- 
roy-Beaulieu, Neuman-Spallart, Soetbeer, Broch, Pirnez, Raffalowich, 
Coste and Dalla Volta — and demonstrated to be a pure myth. That it 
should be reproduced and believed on this side of the ocean was an oc- 
currence to be expected, because bad doctrine, like the cholera, must 
make the tour of the world before it dies out. [Applause.] 

The honest masses of the Popocracy not only believe the foregoing 
myth, but they also believe something the absurdity of which is still 
more demonstrable, i. e., that the United States, by certifying under its 
coinage laws to tne weight and fineness of a disc of metal, can double 
its value as money of ultimate redemption. 

Value is not the creation of government stamp. It is created by the 
desires and necessities of mankind, and is regulated by supply and de- 
mand. Silver is a world product, and its value is regulated by the 
world's supply and demand. Being a world product, it cannot be worth 
more in the United States than in London, Paris, Berlin and the other 
great financial centers of the earth. Its present value in all those cen- 
ters is to-day practically the same, difference of exchange excluded. If 
it rises in value here, it must rise in value there. If 53 cents of silver 
becomes worth 100 cents here, it must have the same value there, less 
exchange. How can the United States add 47 per cent, to the value of 
all the silver in the world now existing or that may hereafter be pro- 
duced? Its laws have no authority beyond the territory of this coun- 
try. The nations of the world to which we sell and from which we buy 
will not take silver at what our government says it is worth, but only 
at what their common consent estimates it to be worth. If silver rises 
in value in the United States and does not rise equally in the world 
markets, it will all seek this country as long as such difference in price 
exists, and it will be sold to us for gold and for our products at a gold 
price. This flood of silver poured into this country will bring the price 
here down to the level of the common world price, because the supply 
will exceed the demand, as the United States cannot absorb all the sil- 
ver in the world, present or future, and because the world will not take 
it back from us except at the world's value. The world's price will, there- 
fore, ultimately fix the value of silver in this country. There will 
doubtless be some increase in its value produced by free coinage; but 
this increase will be as temporary and as disappointing as that which 
followed the Sherman act of 1890, under which the government bought 
for coinage purposes 4,500,000 ounces per month. In spite of this enor- 



129 



mous so-called demand for silver, and in spite of the confident predic- 
tions of the silver Senators, its value, after a spasmodic upward spurt, 
steadily declined under the act, and the government now stands to lose 
millions on its purchases. The mere threat of the continued operation 
of that act created the panic of 1893, and, if continued, it would have 
driven this country to a silver basis. This result was predicted for this 
act by M. Claudio Jannet, the great French economist. Fortunately, it 
was repealed by a Democratic Congress, on the advice of the greatest 
living Democrat, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States. 
These are the reasons that impel all intelligent advocates of bi- 
metallism to insist upon a world-wide agreement as to the free and un- 
limited coinage of silver. In the absence of such an agreement they 
admit that no single country can establish such free coinage, and that 
such a step by a single country will inevitably send such country to an 
exclusive silver basis. Dr. Arendt, the German bimetallist, has made 
the published statement that the 16 to 1 experiment in the United 
States, as now proposed, will set back the course of bimetallism fifty 
years, because its failure is certain, and because the disaster and suf- 
fering brought on this nation by that experiment will confirm the gold 
standard nations in their convictions. One of the last statements that 
Cernuschi wrote was that free coinage in the United States meant silver 
monometallism. 

Recognizing the overwhelming force of this argument, the Popo- 
<3rats turn to spread-eagleism and shout that this country is big and 
strong enough to swing the world by the tail, and to establish a mone- 
tary system of its own, irrespective of all foreign nations. 

The financial unity of all civilized society is as close as that of the 
drops of water in an enclosed lake. Disturbance in one part is 
communicated to the whole by a fixed law of progression. Financial 
unwisdom in Argentina, or in Australia, shocks New York and Berlin 
alike. To quote a modern political economist of the first rank: "One 
of the strongest proofs of the existence of a natural economic order is 
the identity of the monetary system at all times among all peoples. 
The same disturbances have been brought about by the violation of 
economic laws in regard to money among the Greeks and Romans, as 
wrell as among the Chinese and the contemporary "Western nations in 
the middle ages. The reproach brought against capital of being cos- 
mopolitan takes no account, therefore, of one of the finest aspects of the 
plan of creation, which has bound all men solidarily together in spite 
of their division into self-governing nations. Bossuet, with his eagle 
glance, took in the whole range of economic order when he saw in 
money the symbol of the unity of human society." 

The bond of this financial union is exchange, and by means of bills 
of exchange money and values may be transmitted from one end of the 
earth to the other. Hence there must be a world-wide basis of ex- 
change, or standard of measurement of value, and an equally world- 
wide medium of exchange, or means of settling debts so created. This 
standard and this medium is the world-money, and that world-money 
9 



130 



is gold. [Applause.] Government stamp adds nothing to its value. 
On the contrary, fine bars of gold are worth a premium in international 
exchange over the same number of grains of gold coined into the money 
of any nation. 

From this financial union, established by the natural laws of eco- 
nomic order and confirmed by the habits and practices of all mankind, 
the people of the United States can no more escape than they can from 
the influence of the stars. They must trade with the world in the 
world's way, or they cannot trade with it at all. [Applause.] 

Therefore, those who favor the establishment of an American finan- 
cial policy different from that of the civilized world must show how we 
can subvert the order of the ages and force this policy on all other 
nations, or take the position that we must cease to trade with those 
nations in the international way. No person outside of a lunatic asy- 
lum could favor the cutting off of international commerce. It is the 
giant source of wealth, of prosperity, of peace, of national well-being, of 
civilization itself. To check it, to hamper it, to unduly burden it, is an 
injury to the human race and a crime against society. 

This power, therefore, of the United States to adopt its own peculiar 
financial system and to force it upon the nations of the earth is either 
warlike or peaceful. Is it proposed to use the power of the sword to 
compel international acquiescence? Not at all. It is therefore peaceful, 
and it must operate either by persuasion or by the force of its commer- 
cial activity. Is it likely that the Stewarts, and the Tellers, and the 
Bryans will cross the water and persuade the statesmen of the world? 
If it is claimed that this country can force acquiescence by her com- 
mercial power, then it is asserted that a country with one-sixth of the 
world's wealth and about one-eighth of its international commerce can 
dominate and subordinate the world. Her ability for financial dom- 
ination would be even smaller than for physical conquest. 

The men who can believe and act upon such an absurdity as this 
belong to the same type of men as those who in 1860 passionately de- 
clared that one Southerner could whip fifteen Yankees. It cost two mil- 
lion of lives, three thousand millions of dollars and the destruction of 
two thousand millions of values to convince these persons that they 
were mistaken. [Applause.] If they should be mistaken a second 
time, the resulting calamity would be worse than that of the civil war. 

I have no time to point out the far-reaching disaster and ruin that 
would befall this country if it should march into the morass of silver 
monometallism. Even the most reckless of the silver advocates have 
not dared to deny that such a result would be unmixed evil. The lead- 
ers who are bearing the banner inscribed with all these strange de- 
vices have assembled under its folds — as motley a horde as that which 
Jenghis Khan led down to invade and destroy the vineyards and wheat 
fields of the then Western world. I do not say that they are all social- 
ists and cranks, and repudiators, and enemies of public order; but I do 
say that all of these classes of persons are fighting on that side of the 
field. 

One glance, fellow-citizens, at that fell array, and there sounds a 
bugle call in the ear of every man who loves his country to draw his 
sword and smite, and smite, and smite once again, until these black 
legions are scattered to the four winds of heaven. [Applause.] 



Appendix B. 



List of Delegates. 



ALABAMA. 



Delegates-at-Large. — Thomas G. Jones, James Weatherly, J_ 
M. Falkner, S. H. Dent. Alternates-at-Large. — E. E. Pettus, J. 
Lamont Morgan, George A. Searcy, B. D. Armstrong. 

First District Delegates. — H. A. Forcheimer, A. C. Danner.. 
, Alternates. — L. C. Dorgan, Paul E. Eapier. 

Second District Delegates. — F. P. Glass, C. D. Henderson. Al- 
ternates. — J. 0. Sentell, Charles Henderson. 

Third District Delegates. — E. M. Lee, S. J. Foster. Alternates. 
— 0. D. Killebrew, Ben Jennings. 

Fourth District Delegates. — W. J. Alexander, Charles Sparks. 
Alternates. — J. W. Gasser, H. W. Caffey. 

Fifth District Delegates.— C. S. G. Doster, W. F. Foster. Al- 
ternates. — J. H. Baxley, Dr. C. Marlette. 

Sixth District Delegates. — J. H. Fitts, H. W. Long. Alter- 
nates. — G. M. Edgar, W. B. Peebles. 

Seventh District Delegates. — E. T. Hollingsworth, George H. 
Parker. Alternates. — E. H. Casey, G. A. Prinz. 

Eighth District Delegates.— John C. Eyster, E. W. Miller. Al- 
ternates. — E. C. Gunter, J. 0. Ewin. 

Ninth District Delegates. — L. J. Lawson, W. W. Crawford. 
Alternates.— M. Weil, J. L. Welch. 

AEKANSAS. 

Delegates-at-Large. — S. W. Fordyce, John M. Moore, W. J. 
Stowers, C. B. Moore, J. A. Eeeves, Thomas B. Fulton, Andrew 
Nunn, Lev. Fowler, S. T. Mallory, H. King White, J. B. Trulock, 
John M. Taylor, Charles F. Penzel, George F. Eozell, Max Coffin,. 
W. H. Wright. 

(133) 



184 

Alternate Delegates. — George B. Rose, W. C. Ratcliffe, J. B. 
McDonough, B. F. Atkinson, J. R. Tolbert, C. D. Gee, D. V. Snow, 
John W. Goodwin, C. H. Purvis, L. P. Peyton, J. T. Jelks, C. H. 
Blank, C. A. Bloom, E. H. Parham, W. D. Hearn, J. E. Bradley. 

CALIFORNIA. 

Delegates. — Cassius Carter, John Roth, James H. O'Brien, 
Thomas B. Bord, Warren Olney, John Stanley, Clay M. Taylor, 
F. S. Lippett, Nathaniel Harris, Jerry Lynch, John P. Irish, Wil- 
liam Thomas, E. S. Heller. 

CONNECTICUT. 

Delegates. — Thomas M. Waller, Lewis Sperry, George M. Gunn, 
Zolmon Goodsell, Robert J. Vance, J. A. Sperry, H. Holton Wood, 
Charles A. Elliott, David A. Wells, Charles Canfield, Alexander 
Wildman, George M. Woodruff. 

COLORADO. 
Delegate-at-Large. — Louis R. Ehrich. 

DELAWARE. 

Delegates. — Ex-Governor Charles C. Stockley, John S. Rassell, 
L. A. Bertolette, William M. Ross, J. Parke Postles. 

FLORIDA. 

Delegates.— E. G. Hill, W. S. Keyser, R. A. Monsalvatge, D. G t 
Ambler, T. A. Darby, E. W. Coddington, John E. Hartridge, W. A. 
Niblack, Arthur Meigs, H. F. Sharon, J. B. Wall, Ziba King, H. H. 
Buckman, A. Y. Hampton, W. L. Ainsley, W. S. Prosky. 

Alternates.— Henry G. Sird, E. J. L'Eugle, R. E. Davis, M. W. 
Looell, John L. Ingles, W. S. Ware. 

GEORGIA. 

Delegates.— G. Y. Gress, W. S. Thompson, R. F. Maddox, T. F. 
Corrigan, W. A. Russell, W. A. Matthews, G. R. Desaussure, Joseph 
Jacobs, George W. Johnson, D. N. Hudson. 



135 



ILLINOIS. 

Delegates-at-Large. — John M. Palmer, John C. Black, William 
S. Forman, John P. Hopkins, Ben T. Cable, H. S. Eobbins, C. A. 
Ewing, Eoger C. Sullivan. 

Alternates-at-Large. — Robert E. Hamill, F. J. Dvorak, Henry 
Raab, W. S. Wilson, Ben Warner, Jr., E. Phelphs, William Stein- 
widdle, Charles Dnnham. 

District Delegates. — Thomas Moran, x\dams A. Goodrich, Mor- 
ton Kinball, W. E. W. Johnson, John Krebs, A. H. Cohen, J. J. 
Coughlin, L. W. Winchester, James J. Townsend, Adolph Kraus, 
Franklin MacVeagh, Francis S. Peabody, William Legner, Joseph 
H. Fitch, W. H. Hintze, Clinton Rosetti, David Sheean, Joseph G-. 
Hettinger, Charles Dunham, Paul Kersch, James H. Eckles, C. A. 
Palmer, Herman Snow, E. R. E. Kibrough, Thomas Bunn, J. N. 
Trevett, H. M. Pindell, E. A. Wallace, C. H. Williamson, Q. C. 
Ward, E. J. Vaughn, Charles G. Heinz, J. S. Smith, James T. Hob- 
litt, S. W. Molton, George L. Zink, D. I. Lillard, Charles S. Wiley, 
John L. Black, John R. Hoik, G. A. Koerner, W. K. Murphy, 
Henry G. Carter, J. S. Reardon. 

District Alternates. — D. M. Pfaelzer, George A. Neeb, Henry 
P. Carmody, H. C. Hansen, Henry Goldstein, H. B. CofTman, T. F. 
Judge, Henry T. Pitz, John Dowdle, J. B. Murray, W. A. Vincent, 
J. S. Cooper, S. S. Brewer, J. M. Reardon, W. J. Truitte, W. H. 
Doe, W. H. Sizer, Jr., Roderick Chisholm, H. B. Wilkinson, W. B. 
Blish, A. W. Cowen, B. M. Stoddard, D. A. Orebaugh, Jerry Reilly, 
H. 0. Gaston, Samuel Day, Garret Dailey, B. F. Forest, Irwin A. 
Ewing, W. H. Govert, W. R. Routt, E. J. Frost, Charles Nusbaum, 
J. G. Colgrove, Carl Deichman, 0. B. Love, R. B. Miller, 0. B. Sul- 
livan, A. F. Calvin, Charles Carroll, E. C. Ryden, M. M. Stevens, 
C. B. Cole, J. F. Connell, A. J. Miller. 

INDIANA. 

Delegates-at-Large. — George Ford, John C. Robinson, Benja- 
min F. Kobbe, Daniel F. Noyes. 

District Delegates. — August Brentano, Clarence Hinkle, Dr. J. 
A. Minnich, Charles Bierhaus, Dr. L. Dowless, C. S. Foster, Dr. S. 
M. Ford, William W. Mooney, P. J. Morgan, E. R. Hamilton, E. H. 



136 

Font, J. E. McCabe, Allen W. Conduitt, Henry Eusse, S. W. Ed- 
munds, George Grimes, J. S. Nave, J. W. Jordan, Emery B. Sellers, 
E. H. Scott, Harry W. Stronse, M. B. Smith, E. H. McDonald, C. A. 

0. McClellan, J. G. Orr, Daniel Agnew. 

District Alternates. — G. W. Harris, Dr. C. Hicks, Francis H. 
Freeland, James C. Corbin, C. S. Fergnson, Max Abraham, F. A. 
Skelton, F. S. Moore, L. E. Emmons, H. C. Morrison, Al Harston, 
Austin H. Brown, Harry B. Smith, M. M. Winnans, B. F. Wheeler, 
Dr. Gott, N. C. Harris, Thomas Wood, C. L. Thomas, George A. 
Southall, P. S. O'Bourke, S. M. Foster, J. T. Hey, B. D. Salisbury. 

IOWA. 

Delegates-at-Large. — Col. L. M. Martin, William Gronewig, W. 

1. Babb, Col. Joseph Eiboeck, John Cliggitt, Joel Stewart, M. B. 
Hendrick, W. F. Mitchell. 

Delegates. — Henry Vollmer, Samuel Cohn, John Walbank, 
John N. Morton, Eobert Bonson, M. Eicker, J. H. McConlogue, 
M. B. Hendrick, Martin Mee, H. M. Carpenter, W. E. Hollings- 
worth, F. M. Hunter, S. J. Gilpin, Joel Wilmer, H. S. Mallory, 
J. M. Hammond, W. J. Burke, Charles F. Chase, T. M. Mitchell, 
J. J. Eussell, John C. Keeley, M. Snyder, S. G. Sloan. 

Alternates. — Thomas Stivers, George Shaffer, S. A. Swisher,, 
G. L. Johnson, T. F. Kenyon, Henry Schultz, Sam G. Sloane, W. A. 
Hoyt, E. F. Jockheck, John B. Murdough, L. L. Hull, E. T. Shea, 
T. E. North, H. P. Shepherd, J. B. Hornor, E. C. Chamberlain, 
J. H. Halbert, George M. Marshall, B. F. Dickey, Theodore Church- 
illis, P. K. Halbrook, W. P. Van Osterhaut. 

KANSAS. 

Delegates-at-Large. — Thomas P. Fenlon, Samuel Kimble, W. 
E. Garver, W. H. Eossington, C. F. Hutchins, C. Boyd. 

Alternates-at-Large. — S. F. Eeynolds, W. Hodson, N. A. Voss, 
John V. Brinkman, W. I. Joseph, John A. Sheldon. 

District Delegates. — Edward Carroll, E. L. Pease, John D. 
Cruise, C. E. Hulett, Howard Boss, A. W. Jones, C. J. Lantry, J. H. 
Sparks, S. W. Angler, Grover Walker, P. I. Lancaster, C. C. Van 
Deventer, J. W. Long. 



137 



District Alternates. McPike, Shield, George Horse- 
man, Eobert Edmundson, P. H. Albright, B. F. Pankey, D. H. 
Brown, J. S. Alspaugh, Harry C. Tobey. George S. Byrey, Thomas- 
F. Poole, William Osmond, J. W. Russell. 

KENTUCKY. 

Delegates-at-Large. — General S. B. Buckner, A. J. Carroll, W. 
C. P. Breckenridge, Wilbur F. Browder. 

Alternates-at-Large. — William G. Welch, Cromwell Adair, E. T. 
Tyler, J. H. Northup. 

District Delegates. — F. M. Clemens, H. Buchanan, John F. 
Lockett, Bobert Craig, C. W. Milligan, J. C. Johnson, W. J. Dean,. 
Jr., W. A. Watkins, George M. Davie, J. M. Atherton, W. H. Mac- 
koi, W. F. Peake, Thomas H. Hines, Prof. Yeager, W. W. Stephen- 
son, L. C. Willis, J. H. Pierce, W. S. Montgomery, J. T. Sayles,, 
Rodney Haggard, 0. H. Waddell, J. R. Sampson. 

LOUISIANA. 

Delegates-at-Large. — Senator Donelson Caffery, General T. 
Marshall Miller, Edgar H. Farrar, M. R. Spelman. 

Alternates-at-Large. — Charles F. Claiborne, William Gowland,, 
Stanley O'Thomas, Newton Buckner. 

District Delegates. — Louis P. Bryant, Thomas E. Davis, Charles 
Janvier, Leigh Carroll, William T. Miles, Thomas J. Shaffer, E. H. 
Randolph, A. Goodwell, 0. C. Dawkins, G. McD. Brumby, W. J. 
Kerman, J. B. McGeehee. 

District Alternates. — Eugene Mestier, J. M. Walkins, F. L. 
Richardson, Charles H. Scheneck, Wilson McKerrall, Senator 
Hampton, S. B. Hicks, C. W. Blaix, Fergus Kernan, J. L. James. 

MAINE. 

Delegates. — C. Vey Holman, William Henry Clifford, H. G. 
Foss, Russell D. Woodman, Edward C. Jordan, John Harwood, R. 
E. Hersom, George H. Weeks, Josiah Chase, William H. Gardiner, 
Giles 0. Bailey. 



138 

Alternates.— F. W. S. Blanchard, John H. Belcher, E. H. Nutt, 
J. S. True, William H. Stevens, G. S. H. McDowell, S. G. Otais' 
August F. Molton, J. F. Gerrity, Byon Wilson, Nathan Clifford. 

MARYLAND. 

Delegates. — Edward Lloyd, William C. Bruce, Francis Yewell, 
Charles W. Micheal, J. A. C. Bond, Ogdon A. Kirkland, Daniel 
Miller, Leigh Bonsai, Philip D. Laird, Daniel M. Murray, George 
Mohr, William H. Adkins, Francis T. Homer, Alexander Arm- 
strong, Henry M. Walker. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

Delegates. — Charles S. Bird, Sigourney Butler, Charles A. Con- 
mant, James E. Potter, Thomas B. Potter, Charles S. Davis, John J. 
Desmond, William L. Douglas, James E. Estabrook, William Ever- 
ett, Thomas J. Gargan, William T. Jenny, George T. Keys, Henry 
W. Lamb, John C. Lane, Henry B. Little, Leander Sprague, George 
T. McLaughlin, Marcus C. Merritt, Godfrey Morse, William R. 
Plunkett, Daniel L. Prendergast, Charles T. Ralston, William B. 
Rice, Charles G. Saunders, Charles C. Spellman, Ebben Stevens, 
Joseph L. Sweet, Charles Warren, Frank H. Zabriskie. 

MICHIGAN. 

Delegates-at-Large. — S. T. Douglass, John S. Lawrence, S. T. 
Kilbourne, Thomas A. Wilson. 

Alternates-at-Large. — Collins B. Hubbard, George W. Thayer, 
Isaac Lederer, J. A. Parkinson. 

District Delegates. — George H. Barbour, E. F. Connelly, David 
Zimmerman, Clarence H. Bennett, F. M. Thompson, J. S. Upton, 
H. C. Rockwell, J. A. Simins, Vernon H. Smith, J. D. Hood, L. E. 
Rowley, C. E. Wheeler, H. B. Buckeridge, G. D. Crocker, Albert 
Todd, D. E. Skinner, L. N. Keating, William Heap, Rufus F. 
Sprague, Duncan K. Black, A. B. Eldridge, George W. Hayden. 

District Alternates. — George H. Russell, Michael Brennan, Vic- 
tor C. Vaughn, W. S. Todd, John M. Corbin, H. Barlow, G. N. 
Hale, J. H. Perkins, W. H. Hyde, W. H. Loutit, Isaac W. Busch, 



139 



J. A. Myers, John Herr, Robert F. Eldridge, E. P. Gilbert, H. K. 
White, William Mann, William Wilson, R. C. Fuller, W. H. Wells. 

MINNESOTA. 

Delegates-at-Large.— D. W. Lawler, E. T. Wilder, P. B. Gor- 
man, John Ludwig. 

District Delegates. — H. R. Wells, H. W. Lamberton, Dr. J. S. 
Hillscher, C. W. Schultz, J. C. Pierce, T. H. Quinn, F. W. M. 
Cutcheon, J. J. Parker, B. F. Nelson, J. B. Atwater, S. F. White, 
B. W. How, T. C. Kurtz, L. Pearce. 

MISSISSIPPI. 
Delegate-at-Large. — H. M. Street. 

MISSOURI. 

Delegates-at-Large. — James 0. Broadhead, Frederick W. Leh- 
niann, George Robertson, Stephen C. Woodson. 

Alternates-at-Large. — John Cosgrove, Rufus E. Anderson, Wil- 
liam Shelton, Christopher C. Williams. 

District Delegates. — W. B. Humrich, C. H. Marmaduke, W. T. 
Austin, J. W. Sebree, E. I. Morse, G. W. Schweich, Willard P. Hall, 
William L. Smith, Francis M. Black, Alexander Graves, John G. 
Dorman, William P. Coleman, Philip H. Rea, Benjamin U. Massey, 
Albert W. Florea, George C. Ramsey, G. Pitman Smith, Edward C. 
Kennan, Edward C. Kehr, Thomas K. Skinker, Samuel M. Ken- 
nard, William C. Jones, Rolla Wells, C. H. Krum, Peter Barriclow, 
Otto Kochtitzky, John G. Wear, Oliver H. P. Catron, William M. 
Carter, Samuel Henderson. 

District Alternates. — P. P. Croakin, L. Price, D. H. Mounce, J. 
M. Johnson, Claud Hardwick, G. E. McCoy, I. R. Williams, H. A. 
Coster, Robert Keith, J. L. Scruggs, B. F. Hargis, W. F. Houston, 
Dr. James Gardner, R. B. Copies, W. G. Pendleton, P. G. Woods, 
E. H. Moody, Morris Ettinger, George W. Taussig, George S. Wel- 
don, William Freudman, B. H. Charles, R. Graham Frost, G. J. 
Tansey, L. S. Joseph, J. H. Sutton, George Sidway, James Robert- 
son. 



140 



MONTANA. 

Delegates. — James T. Sanford, Charles E. Duer, John S. M. 
Neill, William McDermott, C. C. Cochran, Charles Conrad, A. H.. 
Nelson. 

NEBEASKA. 

Delegates-at-Large.— Euclid Martin, S. G. Glover, G. M. Baer r 
J. C. Crawford. 

First District.— D. P. Kolfe, Albert Watkins. 

Second District. — Carroll S. Montgomery, A. E. Thatcher. 

Third District. — Fred W. Vaughan, Major K. R. MacMullem 

Fourth District.— G. P. Marvin, F. E. White. 

Fifth District.— J. I. Rhea, R. S. Proudfit. 

Sixth District. — J. I. Lease, J. F. Crocker. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

Delegates-at-Large. — Gordon Woodbury, George B. Chandler, 
Josiah Carpenter, Francis M. Hoyt. 

First District.— John Dowst, E. F. McQuesten, by his proxy^ 
Wendell Baker. 

Second District. — Clarence E. Carr, Albert S. Batchellor.. 

NEW JERSEY. 

Delegates-at-Large. — William J. Curtis, George L. Record, 
James Parker, Charlton T. Lewis. 

First District. — Thomas P. Curley, John W. Acton. 

Second District. — Wallace Lippincott, Dr. Joseph B. Shaw. 

Third District. — William Stother Jones, Stephen G. Williams. 

Fourth District. — Samuel T. Smith, Charles Rittenhouse. 

Fifth District. — Anderson Price, W. W. Concklin. 

Sixth District — Dr. Leonard J. Gordon, Otto Grouse. 

Seventh District. — Eugene Vanderpool, John B. Oelkers. 

Eighth District. — John B. Green, R. F. Stevens. 



141 

NEW YOEK. 

Delegates-at-Large. — Ex-Governor Eoswell P. Flower, Ex-Con- 
gressman Charles Tracey, George McGee, Edward M. Shepard. 

District Delegates. — C. S. Andrews, Franklin Pierce, W. C. 
Benton, N. Biddle, W. N. Bennett, W. A. Beach, A. S. Bendall, 
J. C. Blandy, N. E. Bayne, P. Clarke, Eden Carroll, C. Bissell, E. J. 
Demphy, E. M. Dugg, C. J. Edward, J, W. Eaten, A. J. Elkins, 
J. E. Ely, A. Farwell, G. W. Greene, E. Greene, J. W. Greene, E. M. 
Hill, C. D. Hayen, E. T. Hedley, E. M. Hutchinson, C. T. Hoag- 
land, 1ST. C. King, J. D. Keeley, E. S. Kaufman, J. J. Kohnstain, 
B. Lansing, W. E. Leffingwell, H. A. Metz; T. W. Meacham, C. E. 
Miller, F. L. Marshall, John McDonald, Edwin McCue, F. S. Nye, 
E. W. Page, T. M. Osborne, J. V. Phillip, George Foster Peabody, 
John B. Pate, E. I. Peelestrean, Charles Eoe, W. C. Eedfield, W. N. 
Eand, Jr., John Eansom, John Sherdt, J. N. Sherdt, J. J. Stanton, 
0. S. Strauss, George Smith, D. W. Seeley, Theodore Setro, J. S. 
Van Wyck, J. D. Van Buren, E. A. Wildenman, J. N. Watson, S. S. 
Wakeman, John Dewitt Warner, Fred Well, Henry George, B. A. 
Hitchcock, Fulton McMahon. 

NOBTH CABOLINA. 

Delegates.— J. A. Sugg, C. J. O'Hagan, W. J. Pitts, W. W. 
€lark, Charles Eugenstein, W. E. Ashley, W. J. Crutchfield, Sol N. 
Cone, F. M. Morris, A. E. Stevens, T. Witt Kowsky, J. T. Brittin, 
H. E. Fries, Linsay Patterson, J. C. Tipton, Lawrence Wakefield, 
Edwin Sully, Silas McBee, W. C. Damion, William Calder, V. C. 
Eedwine, Lewis De Lacroix. 

Alternates. — J. W. Dewy, James Eedman, Samuel Brenson, 
Charles McEae, George A. Fritz, Ogdon E. Edward, C. U. Fogale, 
P. E. Page, H. T. Balinson, E. L. Vernon, J. J. Osburn, J. S. Spen- 
cer, Judea Hilliard, E. H. Fulenwiter, George F. Bayson, E. S. Eyn- 
heart, Peterson Thorp, Jr., T. E. Little, W. P. Bell, J. C. Dodson, 
J. W. Norwood, J. H. McQueen. 

NOETH DAKOTA. 

Delegates.— F. E. Fulton, H. L. Whithead, P. C. Cranshaw, E. 
B. Blakemore, D. C. Moore, E. A. Shattuck. 



142 



OHIO. 

Delegates-at-Large. — Joseph H. Outhwaite, George E. Seney,, 
William E. Haynes, Michael Ryan. Alternates-at-Large. — William 
Handy, Herman Mueller, William J. Colburn, Moses R. Dickey. 

First District Delegates. — Daniel Wilson, Max B. May. Alter- 
nates.— C. M. Thompson, F. F. Oldham. 

Second District Delegates. — F. M. Gorman, Gustavus H. Wald. 
Alternates. — D. F. Cash, C. M. Hepburn. 

Third District Delegates. — J. J. McMaken, Henry C. Marshall. 
Alternate. — George H. Wood. 

Fourth District Delegate. — Dr. William Hall. 

Fifth District Delegates.— J. J. Moore, S. M. Heller. Alter- 
nates. — E. Lattanner, George H. Marsh. 

Sixth District Delegate. — C. C. Johnson. Alternate. — W. 
Veardorf. 

Seventh District Delegates. — S. L. Nelson, Philip Speasmaker. 
Alternates. — George J. McMullen, William H. Hughes. 

Eighth District Delegates. — Frank Chance, E. E. NefL Alter- 
nates.— Phillip Wilch, W. T. Haviland. 

Ninth. District Delegates. — C. S. Ashley, M. S. Sargent. Alter- 
nates.— T. W. Childs, C. Rosse. 

Tenth District Delegates. — H. F. Thompson, David Armstrong. 
Alternates. — J. R. Hughes, Otto A. Layher. 

Eleventh District Delegates. — P. A. Gordon, J. W. Lash. Al- 
ternates. — Archibald Mayo, G. M. Crawford. 

Twelfth District Delegates. — W. W. Medary, William F. Kemm- 
ler. Alternates. — Emil Kiesewetter, S. P. Bush. 

Thirteenth District Delegates. — Thomas Beer, Theodore Al- 
vord. Alternates. — Robert Dunn, William E. Schofield. 

Fourteenth District Delegates. — John D. DeGolley, E. J. Gross- 
cup. Alternates. — T. E. Myers, R. Smith. 

Fifteenth District Delegates. — S. J. McMahon, Daniel A. Buell. 
Alternates. — Frank McDermott, Charles Lanenburg. 

Sixteenth District Delegates. — James 0. Dixon, J. M. Schreiber. 
Alternates. — Henry Arnold, C. W. Crumley. 



143 



Seventeenth District Delegates. — William Ward, W. H. John- 
son. Alternates. — J. J. Strome, John A. Buchanan. 

Eighteenth District Delegates. — John H. Clark, Johnson Sher- 
rick. Alternates. — J. R. White, W. A. Lynch. 

Nineteenth District Delegates. — Henry Apthorpe, E. E. Nash. 
Alternates. — Clarence Richardson, Charles Coolman. 

Twentieth District Delegates. — H. D. Coffin, John A. Zangerle. 
Alternates. — E. D. Burton, Hans Krause. 

Twenty-first District Delegates. — Virgil P. Kline, S. H. Hold- 
ing. Alternates. — John H. Hogan, C. L. Holtze. 

OREGON. 

Delegates-at-Large.— C. E. S. Wood, W. M. Whidden, J. H. Al- 
bert, E. G. Caufield. Alternates-at-Large. — J. Walton, M. M. 
Walker, W. J. Furnish, J. T. Peters. 

First District Delegates. — J. W. Bennett, E. R. Skipworth. Al- 
ternates. — Dr. F. M. Robinson, Claude Thayer. 

Second District Delegates. — Zera Snow, L. L. McArthur. Al- 
ternates. — T. M. Baldwin, James Lovitt. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

Delegates-at-Large. — John C. Bullitt, William M. Singerly, B. 
J. McGrann, John M. Reynolds, George F. Baer, Fred Dwinner, 
Seth Forsman, R. Bruce Ricketts. 

District Delegates. — Joseph Morwitz, Samuel Dickson, Addison 
B. Burke, John Cadwalder, William F. McCully, Simon J. Martin, 
Emanuel Furth, Dwight M. Lowrey, William Findlay Brown, Wal- 
ter George Smith, Murray Ruch, George H. Earle, Jr., William 
Drayton, Samuel R. Cramer, Alfred E. Lewis, A. J. Durling, Edwin 
H. Stine, Isaac Hiester, William B. Given, Richard M. Reilly, John 
B. Reynolds, S. B. Bennett, Charles F. King, W. A. Torbett, Henry 
McCormick, Casper Dull, Grant W. Lane, William Little, Hon. S. 
R. Peale, Seth T. McCormick, John H. Goeser, C. Murray, J. E. 
Rupert, G. W. Foote, W. P. Lloyd, G. P. Smyser, Frank F. Robb, 
W. P. Schell, James McF. Carpenter, S. C. McCandless, J. J. 
Brooks, Hay Walker, R. E. Unbrell, Joseph Kuntz, Jr., John H. 



144 

Bliss, Pearson Church, G. P. Shafer, J. D. Hancock, E. L. Orvis, 
■J. L. Brown. 

RHODE ISLAND. 

Delegates. — Arnold Green, Charles C. Nichols, Charles H. Page, 
William C. Baker, James J. Van Alen, Gardiner C. Simms, Ed- 
mund Walker, Albert L. Andrews. 

Alternates.— John P. Eeynolds, W. L. Whipple, S. 0. Metcalf, 
Benjamin W. Case, Samuel H. Bullock, John M. Shivley, Joseph C. 
Church, Charles C. Mumford. 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Delegates. — George M. Trenholm, Wilmot D. Porcher, E. Allan 
Tucker, Frank Q. O'Neill, W. W. Ball, Frank Evans. 

SOUTH DAKOTA. 

Delegates. — Joseph Zitka, John B. Hanten, William Irwin, L. 
W. Crowfoot, B. B. Moss, W. F. Byther, Fred Stevens, Thomas H. 
Campbell. 

TENNESSEE. 

Delegates-at-Large. — George W. Ochs, Edmund Cooper, John 
F. House, S. R. Latta. 

Alternates-at-Large. — W. L. Frierson, C. F. Ordway, Theodore 
•Cooley. C. W. Heiskell. 

District Delegates. — Tully R. Cornick, H. E. Fox, H. 0. Ewing, 
J. Q. Sutton, J. H. Holman, W. R. Webb, W. C. Dibrell, Mike Sav- 
age, W. S. Draper, Blair Pirson, A. S. Caldwell, Peyton J. Smith, 
W. H. O'Keefe, A. H. Tipton, J. C. Wooten, J. A. Cunningham, 0. 
C. Barton, N. D. Wiggins. 

District Alternates. — J. M. Hicks, J. H. Llewellyn, H. H. Mat- 
lock, W. J. Slatter, H. P. Keeble, J. B. Frierson, J. B. Keeble, 
J. H. Fall, Henry C. Myers, Leopold Lebmann, Hon. George J. 
Smith, George T. Wofford, W. J. Smith, R. L. McKimey, W. P. 
Wrather, T. J. Sragins. 



145 



TEXAS. 

Delegates-at-Large. — George Clark, D. C. Giddings, M. L. 
Crawford. A. W. Fly. Alternates-at-Large.— T. H. Franklin, E. S. 
Connor, J. P. Smith, W. G. Boyd. 

First District Delegates. — Jerry McDaniel, J. M. Cotton. Al- 
ternates. — J. F. Meyer, J. J. Dodson. 

Second District Delegates. — J. J. Wood, A. M. Rice. Alter- 
nates. — E. A. Barrett, E. J. Mantooth. 

Third District Delegates. — T. 0. Woldert, James H. Jones. Al- 
ternates. — W. B. Teagarden, L. Davidson. 

. Fourth District Delegates.— W. T. Hudgins, W. F. Skillman. 
Alternates. — R. W. Rodgers, L. T. Russell. 

Fifth District Delegates.— J. M. Lindsay, T. W. Stratton. Al- 
ternates.— W. 0. Davis, T. E. Shirley. 

Sixth District Delegates. — W. W. Leake, J. T. Trezevaat. Al- 
ternates. — W. T. Ballew, J. W. Springer. 

Seventh District Delegates.— W. T. Helfley, A. E. Watson. Al- 
ternates. — Bart Moore, W. T. Davidson. 

Eighth District Delegates. — Sidney L. Samuels, W. H. Lassiter. 
Alternates. — R. E. Bell, Luther Boaz. 

Ninth District Delegates. — George T. McGee, Peyton Brown. 
Alternates. — W. G. Messrier, M. C. Rodgers. 

Tenth District Delegates. — M. E. Kleberg, T. J. Ballinger. Al- 
ternates. — M. F. Mott, M. Lasker. 

Eleventh District Delegates. — Grant R. Bennett, T. D. Wood. 
Alternates. — A. C. Jones, F. H. Burweister. 

Twelfth District Delegates. — William Antony, S. D. Scudder. 
Alternates. — J. C. Carr, Edwin Chamberlain. 

Thirteenth District Delegates. — S. W. Eastern, Martin HilL 
Alternates. — Charles Davis, Walter Stewart. 

VERMONT. 

Delegates. — W. H. Creamer, T. W. Gordon, Wells Valentine,. 
A. E. Child, Henry Jillette, Elisha May, E. F. Brooks, P. M. Melton. 



10 



146 



VIRGINIA. 

Delegates-at-Large.— Joseph Bryan, S. V. Southall, James 
Bumgardner, Jr., E. C. Venable. 

Delegates.— Thomas M. Scott, A. B. Chandler, Thomas Tabb, 
E. D. Doyle, Henry S. Hutzler, J. M. Leake, William L. Zimmer, 
T. J. Meredith, William E. Abbott, William V. Wilson, Col. A. L. 
Eives, Capt. H. Clay Michie, T. L. Cockrell, T. L. Waters, A. Fulk- 
erson, G. J. Holbrook, J. H. Crozier, F. H. McCullock. 

Alternates.— J. C. Justice, M. W. Beasley, G. Hatton, J. L. 
Street, Wyndham E. Meredith, N. B. Noland, E. P. Barham, Henry 
O'Neil, Harvey B. Stebbins, T. J. Phelps, C. M. Bolton, J. Triplett 
Haxall, H. P. Howard, L. Eichbersr. F. B. Hurt, M. M. Morris,' 
James P. Hawkins, Jr., E. D. Haislip. 

WASHINGTON. 

Delegates.— Hugh C. Wallace, L. W. Nestelle, E. W. Pollock, 
John L. Sharpstein, T. N. Allen, L. B. Nash, G. W. Stapleton, 
Thomas Burke. 

Alternates.— C. F. Munday, W. W. Eobertson, W. C. Sharp- 
stein, Milan Still, Thomas B. Higgins, A. E. Zabriskie, J. Van Dyke, 
Lynde Palmer. 

WEST VIEGINIA. 

Delegates-at-Large. — Alfred Caldwell, M. W. Gamble, Joseph 
EurTner, Henry C. Sims. 

Alternates-at-Large.- — J. M. Birch, John A. Eobinson, J. L. 
Bowyer, J. F. Strother. 

District Delegates. — Eandolph Stalnaker, C. D. Wiedenhaimer, 
J. W. McSherry, E. C. Estep, L. J. Williams, U. B. Buskirk, E. H. 
Browse, J. W. Bates. 

District Alternates. — E. S. Davidson, W. E. Hammond, H. W. 
Potts, N. S. D. Pendleton, D. O'Connell, E. S. Quarrier, T. L. 
Trimmer, J. W. Spotts. 



147 



WISCONSIN. 

Delegates-at-Large. — Edward S. Bragg, William F. Vilas, James 
G. Flanders, James J. Hogan. 

Alternates-at-Large. — S. N. Dickinson, John Johnston, John J. 
O'Brien, 0. E. Wells. 

District Delegates. — E. G. Hazleton, Joseph G. Krai, Burr W. 
Jones, D. Blumenfeld, George W. Dyer, N. H. Grow, William Berg- 
enthal, C. F. Hunter, M. C. Mead, Dr. Henry Albers, 0. A. Welfs, 
H. P. Hamilton, Eobert Lees, William Carson, John Brennan, M. 
C. Haney, H. T. Scudder, A. E. Beebe, E. J. Shields, W. F. Mc- 
My. 

District Alternates. — John H. Savage, E. F. Donnelly, W. C. 
Leitsch, William A. Bierhaus, Joseph T. Evans, George T. Morris, 
Fordyce H. Bottom, George S. Bartlett, Julius Kroos, Theodore 
Thielges, T. F. Mayham, C. A. Engelbrecht, Ira A. Hill, John 
Marsh, John Ware, David Decker, M. Barry, Charles Chaffee, C. F. 
Tryon, D. Buchanan. 

ALASKA.* 
ARIZONA.* 

NEW MEXICO. 

Delegates.— J. W. Schofield, W. E. Dame, W. B. Childers. 
Alternates. — John Lynch, James Boyce, Andrew Johnson. 



* Delegates were present from these Territories, but their credentials were not filed 
with the Secretary. 






.»•»— X*"^ 






i : 



